Azumangastar Galactica
by Not-as-Thrilling-as-Advertised
Summary: Finally, the crossover you weren't demanding: Azumanga Daioh and Battlestar Galactica with a dash of Yotsubato! thrown in for good measure .
1. Introductions

I don't own Azumanga Daioh, Yotsubato!, or Battlestar Galactica, blah blah blah. I don't know why I should point that out since this is a _fan fiction_ site and not an _original fiction_ site, but there ya go.

* * *

The Colonial Battlestar _Sea Slug_ wasn't a ship built for looks, but she had her own brand of sleek and deadly grace anyway. Covered in armor plating and bristling with anti-ship and point-defense gun turrets, the _Mercury_-class vessel glided through the pristine silence of space with deadly authority, as if she were animate and aware that her model was the top of the line, the largest, toughest, and most advanced warship in the Colonial Fleet. Prowling on her rim patrol surrounded by her gnat-like Viper air patrols, the _Sea Slug_ almost _dared_ anyone to try to tangle with her.

Dragging her feet into the Combat Information Center, the _Sea Slug_'s commander shared almost none of the ship's qualities, save perhaps for a belligerent attitude, the fact that they were both referred to as _she_, and the fact that they were both composed of solid matter_._ At only five feet, two inches Commander Yukari Tanizaki was far from physically imposing, and at this hour she carried herself with none of the authority and dignity so commonly associated with an officer of her rank. She barely even acknowledged her crew as she yawned cavernously and staggered to the Command and Control station.

"Commander on deck!" Colonel Minamo Kurosawa, the _Sea Slug_'s Executive Officer, snapped to attention and saluted. All around the CIC asses left seats as the command crew followed protocol.

Yukari reached the plotting table and leaned on it a moment before glancing around at her crew and giving them a half-assed salute. "As you were," she said disinterestedly.

As the routine morning activities resumed the XO stepped foreward and tapped the edge of her clipboard on the table's surface. "Rough night, Commander?" she asked, though she knew full well the answer.

Yukari glared at her with bloodshot eyes. "You know it really burns my ass that you get up earlier than me _and_ you're so awake," she finally said.

"I get up every day at reveille, just like you," Kurosawa said a little defensively. "I just don't spend the whole night drinking with the pilots."

"Well aren't you just perfect!" Yukari all but shouted. Only a couple heads turned their way; this sort of conversation happened almost every morning, and the crew had learned to just ride out their Commander's period of early morning surliness.

Kurosawa closed her eyes and sighed. _Couldn't they have _one_ morning when she didn't act like a dumbass?_ "Anyway, here's the morning comm traffic," she said and handed over the clipboard. "Not much, but there never is out here." _She hated being stuck out patrolling the edge of Colonial space._ "Apparently the armistice shuttle is overdue to return and they're requesting that any nearby ships go check out the situation, but that's clear on the other side of Colonial space."

"Yeah, frak that noise." Yukari blinked tiredly as she reviewed the list. Finally she looked up at her XO. "So what's the plan for today?"

Kurosawa reached over and flipped the page on the clipboard, revealing the itinerary for the day. "Command wants us to finish our sweep of that stretch of the Abraxas belt, and then I thought we could get our Vipers out for some combat exercises." Hastily she added, "With the Commander's approval, of course."

Yukari tossed the clipboard onto the table and waved her hand. "Ahh whatever, do what you want. 'Freedom of the people,' and all that crap."

"Um, sir, this is the _military._"

Yukari's expression turned hostile. "Are you questioning my orders, Colonel?"

Kurosawa shook her head. "Of course not, but that sort of attitude-"

"Silence!" Yukari snapped imperiously, and put her hands behind her back. "They say that on a ship at sea, or in our case, in space, the captain's word is scripture," she said as the paced around the table before coming to a stop on the other side of her XO. "And I am Captain of this ship!"

"I think you just demoted yourself," Kurosawa said.

"Miss Mizuhara!" Yukari ignored her and turned to the spectacled Tactical Officer.

"Yes sir!" Lieutenant Koyomi Mizuhara said.

"Plot a jump!" Yukari ordered. "Abraxas asteroid belt!"

"Yes sir." Mizuhara nodded and got to work.

"Are you sure you want to _jump _there?" Kurosawa leaned in and asked. "It's not that far, we can get there by sublight in a couple hours."

"Nyamo, you ignorant slut." Yukari said condescendingly. "The sooner we get this sweep over with, the more time we have to spend blowing up asteroids."

Kurosawa shook her head. _How did this lunatic ever get command of a Battlestar at all, let alone a _Mercury-_class?_ She asked herself that question almost every day.

--

"She's bluffing," Kaori Aida whispered to Chihiro Inoue as they watched Takino stare intently at the hexagonal cards in her hands.

"Come on Numbnuts, make your move," Captain Mai Kagura said impatiently. "You've been staring at those cards for ten minutes."

Lieutenant Tomo Takino, callsign Numbnuts, looked over at her CAG, then at the Raptor pilot and her ECO, and then back at the cards in her hands. She was in trouble here; her hand stunk. How did she get dealt the rules card, anyway? She was pretty sure you were supposed to take that one out of the deck. She stalled by taking one of her cards and moving it to another spot in the row, as if that could make a difference.

"We all know you've got nothing, so just face up already," Kagura told her.

Tomo finally straightened in her chair and puffed out her chest. "Well gentlemen . . ." she began with a proud smile, before crushing the cards up and stuffing them in her mouth.

"Hey, those are _my_ cards!" Kagura yelled as she got up and grabbed Tomo's arm as she tried to back away and chew the cards at the same time. Chihiro grabbed her other arm and Kaori grabbed her head. Tomo shook her head and squealed as she dug her fingers into her mouth and pulled out the soggy crumpled cards.

"Ewww," Kaori said as she dropped the cards onto the table and wiped her fingers on her shirt. "You could have just folded, you know."

"How do you think she got her callsign?" Kagura asked as she straightened the cards, then gave up and took them over to the trash. "You owe me a new deck, Tomo."

"I actually had a good hand this time, too," Chihiro whined.

"Don't worry about it," Tomo said with a smile as she gathered up her cubits from the table. "Game's off, so we all get our money back!"

Kagura grabbed her wrist. "Not so fast spudnik, you still owe us from the last game."

Tomo grinned and laughed nervously. "Yeah, about that, ya see . . ." Then she shoved Kagura away and took off running out of the pilot's rec room. The others stood around the table and watched her run, then looked down.

"She left all her money," Chihiro said.

--

"Hey Yomi!" Tomo waved and caught up to her friend in the corridor, shoving a petty officer out of the way.

"Oh, Tomo." Koyomi turned and acknowledged her before continuing on her way back to CIC. When she got in close Koyomi had to push her away. "Not in front of everyone, are you stupid?"

"What's the problem?" Tomo asked. "I don't report to you."

"There's a time and a place for that sort of thing," Koyomi whispered. "And besides, you know how the Commander is about relationships among her crew." She paused, then: "Of course if you got that transfer . . ." _She'd probably get put on the _Galactica, she thought. _That's where they send all the other frak-ups._

"If you're thinking I'd be at home on the _Galactica,_ they're turning that scrap-heap into a museum," Tomo said with an annoyed look on her face. "Anyway, you won't be rid of me that easily."

"Oh joy," Koyomi said dryly as they reached CIC. "Haven't you got somewhere to be?"

Tomo shrugged. "Not really."

Koyomi stepped between the glass panels that marked the boundary between corridor and command center. "Well I do, so I'll be seeing you around."

"Aye sir!" Tomo gave a salute that would have earned her pushups in basic training and headed off down the corridor. Who else could she annoy?

--

"Does this hurt?" Yuri Sakaki asked as she squeezed experimentally on the wrist in her hand.

Ensign Wada shook her head. "Not really," she said.

"Now?" Sakaki squeezed in another spot.

Wada winced slightly. "A little."

"How about now?" She bent the hand back and Wada yelped.

"Yeah! Yeah, ow!"

Sakaki nodded and stood back. "I think it's just a sprain. I'll give you a brace for it."

Wada worked her fingers and nodded. "Thank you."

Sakaki smiled quietly. "Don't worry about it, it's my job." She began writing something on a pad of paper. "Just take this to Mister Janson and he'll set you up."

Wada took the note, thanked her again, and left. Sakaki leaned back on the bed and looked across the sickbay. It had been a slow day, as could usually be expected during peacetime. The _Sea Slug_'s sickbay didn't see an awful lot of activity, save for when there was an accident involving heavy equipment or the days after shore leave when the crew began flowing in with all manner of horrifying rashes and sores. It was times that that that made her appreciate the boredom of today.

"So how was it?"

Sakaki jumped and turned to see Major Kimura, the ship's chief medical officer, standing behind her on the other side of the bed with his usual slack-jawed stare. That man seemed to pop up out of nowhere, sometimes.

"How was what, sir?" she asked uncertainly.

He simply stared at her, adjusted his glasses, and then left. As Sakaki watched him go she thought to herself that she should have been used to Kimura's eccentricities by now, but he never failed to confuse her. Sometimes she wondered if she shouldn't apply for a transfer to another Battlestar.

--

"Wooo, frak yeah!" Kagura whooped over the wireless as her missiles detonated against the asteroid and it blasted apart. "Didja see that one go?!"

"I can beat that," Tomo said, already looking for a suitable asteroid.

"Shiisa and Numbnuts, this is _Sea Slug_ Actual," Yukari's voice said over the wireless. "You'd better be getting those explosions on your gun cameras!"

"Roger that Actual," Kagura said.

"That one!" Tomo said and pointed her Viper towards an asteroid the size of a small building.

As Kagura watched her accelerate away she shook her head. "I don't know Numbnuts, isn't that a little big?"

"Ahh sit on it Shiisa," came the response. "Tone and lock . . . firing!" Two white trails of exhaust shot away from the hardpoints under the Viper's wings as Tomo fired her missiles. There were two blossoms of flame as they impacted, and then the entire asteroid vanished in a blinding fireball that shook their Vipers and threatened to engulf Tomo's.

"That was solid tylium, you idiot!" Kagura shouted as she watched Tomo's bird flip end over end and zip past her in a rush to escape the expanding cloud of debris. As a chunk of rock nearly as big as she was spun past her cockpit Kagura did the same. "Do you have any idea how much fuel could've been refined from that?!" she asked as they high-tailed it back to the barn.

Tomo's maniacal laughter came over the wireless. "Wahahaha! Not much now!"

"Shiisa _Sea Slug,_ what the _hell_ happened out there?!" Kurosawa's worried voice demanded.

"Numbnuts just blew up enough unrefined tylium to fuel a Battlestar," Kagura said with a glare at the Viper beside hers. She could see Tomo grinning to herself.

"Are you two okay?"

"Yeah, we're fine."

"Okay, come on home then."

"Roger that." Then to Tomo: "How did they ever let you behind the stick?"

"Bad judgment, I guess."

"Is everyone in your family as dumb as you are?"

"No," Tomo said. "My sister decided to work for the family business instead of enlisting." The Takinos owned and operated PanGlobal Express, an independent shipping company based on their home planet of Tauron. Both Tomo and her twin sister Torako had been offered jobs as transport pilots in the company, but Tomo had chosen to join the Colonial Fleet instead. It wasn't like the company would be around much longer anyway, Colonial Movers were outcompeting them almost everywhere they looked.

"Smart of her," Kagura said as they neared the _Sea Slug._ "_Sea Slug_ Shiisa, beginning my approach and request initiation of autolanding sequence."

"Negative on that, Shiisa," the LSO's voice came back to her, "autolanding is down at the moment. You'll have to do your approach hands on."

Kagura shook her head. "Roger that, beginning hands on approach."

--

"Mizuhara! What the hell is going on with the computers?" Yukari slapped her hand down on the plotting table.

"I don't know sir, they've been acting buggy all night."

"Why wasn't it reported?!"

"It _was_," Kurosawa said and pointed at the forgotten clipboard on the table.

"Well get 'em fixed!" Yukari ordered.

"Yes sir!" Koyomi turned to a shorter officer. "Mihima, can I get a hand here?"

As the two Lieutenants checked diagnostic screens and lines of code Yukari leaned on the table and sighed. "Man, this is the last thing I need. If Admiral Goto finds out I broke this thing I'll be lucky if I can get command of a garbage transport."

"There are a lot of corrupted files in here," Mizuhara said. "They seem to be interfering with the CNP's operation." She turned to the Commander. "I suggest we take the CNP network offline until we get things cleaned out."

Yukari shrugged. "Sure, go ahead." She thought for a moment, then added, "Deactivate the CNP software in the Vipers and Raptors, too."

Mizuhara looked confused. "Um, sir, I don't see how the Vipers and Raptors are-"

"You have your orders!" Yukari snapped. "I don't want my birds flying with buggy software!"

Mizuhara sighed and decided not to bother trying to explain that the problem wouldn't affect the planes. "Yes sir," she said.

"Um, Miss Yomi?" Mihama asked, looking at one of the files listed as interfering with the CNP. "What's 'triple penetration'?"

Kurosawa cast an accusing glance at her Commander, who was suddenly very interested in the clipboard.

--

It turned out there were over sixteen terabytes of foreign files in the CNP's computer space, and half of those were either corrupted or carrying spyware. Mizuhara and Mihama predicted it would take nearly forty-eight hours to purge the files and do a complete sweep of the system. When Kurosawa asked why they couldn't just reformat and start clean from the backups, it was revealed that Yukari had been using the discs as coasters in her quarters.

Kurosawa leaned forward on the plotting table and rubbed her forehead. "Honestly Yukari, couldn't you have found a better place to stash all your porn?"

"What makes you think it's _mine?_" Yukari asked defensively as she scratched at her armpit.

"Because I somehow doubt there are _two_ people on this ship who are into rape porn," she said. They had known each other since high school, and Yukari's bizarre tastes in pornography were well known to her, as much as she wished they weren't.

Yukari just shrugged. "You never know."

"Sir?"

They both looked at Petty Officer Ohyama, the communications officer.

"What is it, Four-eyes?" Yukari asked.

Ohyama looked at the print-out in his hands. They were shaking. "Um, sir, we've just gotten a priority one alert message from Fleet headquarters," he said. "It was transmitted in the clear."

Yukari and Kurosawa's eyebrows both raised as they exchanged glances. _In the clear?_ "What does it say?"

Ohyama licked his lips nervously and looked up at her. "It says 'Attention all Colonial units, Cylon attack underway. This is no drill.'"


	2. Retaliation

The tone rang out across the _Sea Slug._ In the showers, Tomo paused in the middle of preparing to snap another pilot in the ass with a towel. In the sickbay, Kimura and Sakaki paused and looked up to the speakers built into the ceiling. In the rec room the normal buzz of chatter died down.

"This is the Commander," Yukari's voice boomed. "We have just recieved word that the Cylons have begun a massive nuclear attack on the Twelve Colonies. You all know what this means."

In the CIC Yukari clenched her fist. "Our time has finally come to prove ourselves! War is upon us, and we will rise to the challenge without fear!" Her voice raised as she got caught up in the moment. "We will become death, destroyer of worlds! We will come screaming from the void, wrapped in Hell's fury, to bring those chrome-plated savages war the likes of which they have not seen! We will teach them to fear the name _Sea Slug!_ We will not stop, will not rest, until every we have killed one hundred Cylons for every fallen Colonial! Ours will be a vengeance retold through the ages!" Her voice rose to a screech that seemed to shake the entire ship. "THERE WILL BE NO ESCAPE FROM OUR WRATH! OUR GOAL IS NOTHING LESS THAN COMPLETE EXTERMINATION! SO SAY WE ALL!!" She slammed the handset down in its cradle and laughed maniacally while the command staff looked at her in shock.

Finally Kurosawa turned to the Tactical Officer. "Set Condition One throughout the ship." Immediately klaxons began blaring and the glass panels rotated shut.

"Action stations, action stations," Koyomi said into her headset, and her voice was heard throughout the ship as everyone scrambled for their places. "Set Condition One throughout the ship."

"I want Vipers in the tubes!" Yukari barked. "Where's the nearest action? We need to jump!"

"The closest world is Sagitarron," Kurosawa said.

"Yes! The Toilet of the Colonies! Mizuhara, plot a jump there!"

"Yes sir!"

"You seem awfully excited about this," Kurosawa said.

--

"We're screwed, we're screwed, we're screwed," a pilot was saying on the way to the launch bay.

"Stow that talk," Kagura snapped as she zipped up her flight suit. "We kicked these guys' asses forty years ago, we can kick their asses now. Just remember your training and you'll be fine."

The nervous pilot nodded.

"WAAAHOOOOOO!!" They were both knocked out of the way as Tomo barreled past them down the corridor, swinging her helmet. "Time to kick ass and take names!" they heard her shout as she rounded a corner.

"Yeah, let's KICK ASS!" Kagura shouted and took off after her, leaving the other pilots in the dust. It wasn't long before she'd passed her, reaching the launch bay first and running up the gangway to jump into her Viper. "Get me in a tube!" she shouted to the deck crew as she pulled on her helmet.

As Kagura and Tomo's Vipers were being taxied into their launch tubes and the rest of the pilots reached the launch bay, the _Sea Slug _jumped. Thirty seconds later they were struck by a nuclear missile launched from the radial arm of a Cylon Basestar.

"Oh frak me!" Yukari shouted as she was thrown forward onto the plotting table. "Get me a firing solution on that bastard!"

"DRADIS contact!" Mizuhara yelled, staring in horror at her console. "Three Cylon Basestars. They're launching Raiders, I count ten . . . twenty . . . a frakload of squadrons!"

"You just took us all on a suicide mission!" Kurosawa said as Yukari simply stared at the DRADIS. "YUKARI!"

Yukari snapped back to her senses. "Launch all vipers and bring us closer to the nearest Basestar!"

"_Closer?!_" Ensign Wada shouted in disbelief.

Kurosawa shook her head. "No, it'll work. Battlestars are brawlers, Basestars aren't. They're not built for close-quarters combat."

"That information is forty years old!" Mizuhara protested.

"Red and Blue Squadrons away," Ohyama said. "Gold and Green are in the tubes now."

Yukari nodded. "Okay, fire control, get a solution on the nearest Basestar's center axis and set all batteries that can fire in front of us to salvo fire. Be ready to fire on my command."

"Yes sir!"

--

The space around the _Sea Slug_ glittered and burst as her point-defense batteries fired non-stop, putting a wall of flak between her and the rain of missiles and Raiders. Every now and then a missile would find its way through to detonate against the hull, shaking the crew and scorching the armor plating but failing to do any major damage. Battlestars were built tough.

"Numbnuts, your six!" Kagura called over the wireless as she jumped her Viper straight up to avoid a line of blue-white tracer fire.

"I got that shit," she heard as she saw her wingman's bird flip over and fire all three guns, tearing the pursuing Raider apart in a spray of blood and gore.

"They're full of guts?!" she said in disbelief. "That's frakked up!"

"But satisfying," Tomo said as she blasted another one. "Man, these guys really suck!"

"Don't get too confident," Kagura said as another Viper exploded apart. "We're still totally outnumbered."

"Where are all our ships?!" someone asked frantically. It sounded like Crayon. "We're all alone out here!"

"Worry about that when we've got time!" That was Static. "Bug, four turkeys at three o'clock, bearing on the _Slug_."

"Got it." Two Vipers broke away from the main battle to intercept.

--

"How long are you going to wait, Yukari?" Kurosawa asked, holding onto the table for support at the ship shuddered under increasingly frequent missile strikes.

"Fire!" Yukari shrieked.

The _Sea Slug_ opened fire on the nearest Basestar with her main batteries. Antiship warheads exploded against the spindly vessel's hull, quickly severing a radial arm. The Basestar was beginning to back away when the _Sea Slug_ severed its central axis, cutting it in half.

"Target destroyed!" Mizuhara whooped with a grin as the Basestar disappeared from DRADIS. "We killed it, sir!"

"Frak yeah!" Yukari crowed. "On to the next one! Full speed, take us right down their throats!"

"We're taking quite a beating, sir," Ensign Wada said from her console.

"How's the FTL?" Kurosawa asked.

Wada checked, then nodded. "Still online."

"I want it spooled."

"Yes sir."

"Surely you can't be thinking of retreat, Nyamo?!" Yukari asked with a manic grin and fire in her eyes. She was enjoying this _way_ too much.

The _Sea Slug_ came about with far more speed and agility than would be expected for a ship its size and advanced on the next closest Basestar. As soon as she was within range she began pounding it with her forward batteries as her dorsal batteries targeted the third Cylon ship. The second ship was just coming apart in a cloud of flame when the last one jumped out, followed by the remaining Raiders.

"Did we just _win?_" Mizuhara asked in disbelief.

"I don't like this," Kurosawa said. "Recall the Vipers." She turned to Yukari. "We should prepare to jump."

"Jump?!" Yukari scoffed. "We just took on three Basestars and won! See that wreckage out there?!" A rhetorical question, as the _Sea Slug_ had only one window and it was nowhere near CIC. "Why should we leave now and leave these defenseless Sags to their fates?"

"Sir, I'm reading massive nuclear detonations on the surface of the planet," Petty Officer Wike spoke up. "It's a glass parking lot down there."

"No one to save, then." Yukari said.

"Last of the birds is down," Ohyama said from his station.

"DRADIS contact," Mizuhara said.

"Reinforcements?" Yukari asked brightly.

"Yeah, but not ours," she said dismally. "Six Cylon Basestars, and they're launching Raiders."

Yukari nodded. "Okay, maybe it's time to jump."

--

Once the _Sea Slug_ was safely hidden in the shadow of a mountain-sized asteroid in the Abraxas belt and repairs were underway, the initial post-battle excitement slowly died down and the full weight of what had happened began to sink in.

"CAG . . ." Tomo said from her rack in the pilot's duty locker, "Yomi told me Sagitarron's been nuked into glass."

On the rack below her Kagura nodded. "That's what they're saying."

"And I hear Caprica and Picon are being nuked too."

Kagura nodded. "Yeah," she said quietly. She was thinking of her family on Picon.

Tomo reached back and felt for the picture frame behind her head. When she found it she picked it up and looked at it. It had been taken on the day she and Yomi had left for basic training. Yomi was standing with her duffel bag over one shoulder, and Tomo was grinning with one arm resting on her twin sister Torako's shoulder. Torako was standing with her hands in her pockets, cigarette hanging from her lips. As usual her hair was in her eyes and she was frowning. _Nuked into glass . . ._ "Tauron too?" she asked finally.

She heard Kagura sigh. "Yes, Tauron too."

_Nuked into glass . . ._ She imagined her family eating dinner as the world flashed outside and they were obliterated in less time than it took to blink. Instantly vaporized, with barely enough time to realize what was going on. _Nuked into glass . . ._

Tomo heard Kagura quietly sobbing beneath her as she rolled onto her side and hugged the picture frame to her chest.

_Nuked into glass . . ._

* * *

**-Author Notes-**

God, what a bunch of whiney emo bitches. I mean Jesus, it's only their familes and friends and everyone they've ever known getting erased from existence in a nuclear armageddon along with billions of other innocent people, _damn._ I'd _deal._

Also if you're wondering where the fuck Tomo got a twin sister from check the author notes on the first chapter of "The Other Takino." Yes, I _am_ going to work it into every story I do involving Azumanga characters (man, I hope that doesn't get to be a big number), because I like Torako. Don't like it? Well that's . . . unfortunate, I guess. For you.

Unfortunate for you.

And if you're wondering how a single Battlestar could whomp so much ass against the Cylons when the Colonies were wiped out so effortlessly at the start of the war, just watch "Resurrection Ship, part 2," "The Captain's Hand," or "Exodus, part 2." Without their 1ee7 haxxing skillzorz to shut down the Battlestars before they even step into the ring, the Cylons are at a _serious_ disadvantage in a one-on-one fight, relying on subterfuge and superior numbers as opposed to the brute force approach of the Colonials.


	3. Plan of Attack

The Six frowned across the data font at the Five standing across from her. "How did the _Sea Slug_ escape deactivation?" she demanded. "That little frak-up cost us two of our Basestars."

"I don't know," answered the Five, blandly sinister as always. "We can only speculate that they'd disconnected their Command Navigation Program before we began our attack."

"Could they have discovered our agent in their crew?" asked a Three.

The Five shook his head. "No. He was killed by an exploding comm drone over a week ago."

"And he was never replaced?" the Six asked incredulously. "We've got a runaway Battlestar out there, I don't need to tell you what kind of a threat that could pose."

"We tried," the Five explained, "but the paperwork was taking forever."

The Six clenched her fist and shook her head. They'd managed to infiltrate the Colonies and successfully pull off a coordinated series of simultaneous nuclear attacks across twelve planets, only to have this wrench thrown in their plans by _paperwork?_

"We're taking care of it." An Eight was strolling onto the bridge. "We have an idea where they might be hiding, and we're going to arrange for an agent to link up with them."

"Who are you sending?" the Five asked.

"We're sending a Thirteen."

"I hope you know what you're doing," the Six warned. The Thirteens were even loopier than the Twos. "What about the _Galactica_?"

"We've reached word from our agent on _Colonial Heavy 798 _that it's holed up at Ragnar along with a small fleet of civilian refugees," the Five said. "We've sent a pair of Basestars to deal with them."

"Will that be enough?" the Six asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"That ship is hopelessly outdated," the Five assured her. "Two Basestars will be more than a match."

"And if they do get away, we still have our sleeper agent on board," the Eight said.

"All right." The Six rubbed her forehead. "No more mistakes. We need to eliminate these two Battlestars."

"Three Battlestars," the Five corrected.

"What?" She stared at him incredulously. "_Three?_"

"We've lost track of the _Pegasus,_" he said, a little nervously. The Sixes were not a model one wanted to upset.

"What _part_ of 'Wipe out the Colonial Fleet' was so hard to grasp?" she sputtered. "Okay. Fine. Three Battlestars." She waited, looking around at the others expectantly.

"What?" the Three asked.

"Anyone going to say _four?_"

Heads shook.

The Six nodded. "Okay. We need to eliminate these three Battlestars, whatever it takes. Am I making myself clear?"

"By your command," the other models all said at once.

"Don't do that," the Six said, "It just sounds weird."

--

Commander Yukari Tanizaki took the podium and looked out over the lines of bodies. She looked behind her, at the row of flight helmets symbolizing the pilots lost, floating out there near Sagitarron. She lowered her head and sighed. She looked over her crew in their dress grays. A solemn group. She took a deep breath. _Gods_ she could use a drink.

"I've never been good with speeches, much less funerals," she began, glancing down the line at the flag that she was pretty sure covered the body of the ship's chaplain. _Bastard, this is _your_ department._ "There's not much I can say to make this better." She took another breath and looked out at the faces watching her. _All eyes on you, Yukes. Better make this good._ "We're not just here to mourn our fallen friends and shipmates. We are here to mourn our families. Or friends, and our loved ones. Look around with you at your fellow crew."

Only a few heads turned.

"DO IT!" she bellowed.

They began turning and looking at each other.

"Everyone you see has lost someone. Everyone around you shares your pain. Rank, status, and colony don't matter now. We are all made equal by our shared pain and anger. Except for me, because I'm the commanding officer," she slipped in real quick.

Colonel Kurosawa stepped into the launch tube with a folded Colonial flag.

Yukari straightened, getting more into the spirit of speech-making. "But we cannot give in to our pain! We need to take that pain, and harden it. Turn it into anger."

Kurosawa lay the flag down on a body in the center row and returned to her place behind Yukari.

"And with that anger," Yukari continued, "we will avenge our fallen comrades! We will drive the Cylons from our worlds, and when we can rest once more we will immortalize the names of the fallen so that future generations will know that they gave their lives so there would _be_ a future. So say we all!"

"So say we all," the gathered crew repeated.

"So say we all!" Yukari said again, louder this time.

"SO SAY WE ALL!"

--

The _Firefly-_class mid-bulk transport _Something Delicate_ sat at the bottom of a crater, hidden in the perpetual shadow of Cambria's dark side. Even though all exterior lights and any interior lights that would be visible from outside had been extinguished, the young woman sitting at the helm couldn't help glancing nervously at the DRADIS and external video feeds every few minutes.

"Anything yet?" the _Delicate_'s captain asked as she came up the gangway and stepped through the hatch.

The pilot shook her head. "No, looks like we were the last ship to make it off the planet." After leaving Tauron's atmosphere they had taken one look at the orbiting Basestars and at the swarms of Raiders picking off the fleeing civilians and had high-tailed it for the nearest moon. They had miraculously reached Cambria without being shot down, or as far as they knew even detected, and settled into the deepest crater they could find while they tried to get their FTL online. As suspected however, they needed replacement parts, which they would probably have a little trouble getting hold of now. If their employers hadn't already been turned to charcoal silhouettes the crew would have lodged a _very_ strongly worded complaint.

The pilot took another drag from her cigarette. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to look up at her captain.

"How you holding up?" Captain Asagi Ayase asked.

"How do you think?" Torako Takino asked bitterly and turned back to her console.

The hand on her shoulder squeezed slightly. "Yeah, same here. Just . . . keep scanning the wireless, okay?"

Torako nodded as Asagi reached over her and took the handset for the intership comm. "Shimauu, how are you coming with that FTL?"

"I'm not," an irritated and somewhat breathless voice came back, "I already told you we need parts we don't have."

Asagi sighed. If Shimauu couldn't get their jump drive working, no one could. Though she'd been a little apprehensive when they'd been saddled with her little sister's eccentric friend as their wrench jockey, she had to admit she was very good at what she did. Her tendency to dance while working took some getting used to though . . .

"Maybe we could salvage something?" Torako suggested from behind her. "There's bound to be a lot of wreckage floating around out there."

Asagi looked at her in disbelief. "Pick the flesh off the dead? We're not vultures, Torako."

"Salvaging's legal, Captain," Torako pointed out, though she doubted _that_ mattered now. "And if we don't get our FTL working soon we'll be dead in the water." Then she added, "We can get outside Colonial space on a hard burn, but we'd never live to reach somewhere habitable."

Asagi opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. Torako didn't usually talk much, and when she did as much as she was now she usually had a very good point. "I guess we can't stay here, can we," she said.

Torako shook her head. "What little I'm picking up on wireless says we're getting slaughtered. Some Commander Adama's taken control of the Fleet and ordered a regroup at the Ragnar Anchorage."

Asagi sighed and rubbed her forehead. "That's clear on the other side of the system." They'd never get there by sublight.

Torako nodded. "From what I'm hearing I don't see what good he can do, our ships are dropping like flies." She picked up a printout. "_Atlantia_ destroyed_, Triton, Acropolis, Valkyrie, Columbia . . ._"

"_Sea Slug_?" Asagi asked.

"Not on the list." She hesitated. "But I'm not feeling optimistic."

Asagi nodded, then sighed. "Okay, I guess we have no choice then. How's it look on DRADIS?"

Torako checked. "I'm reading a couple base ships, but on a hard burn we should be well out of range before their Raiders can reach us." She looked back at Asagi. "And the blast oughtta confuse their instruments so they can't get a fix on us." She was just guessing now; Torako had no idea what kind of hardware the Cylons had.

Asagi patted the back of the pilot's chair. "Okay, take us out." Then into the comm, she said: "Shimauu, fire it up and get ready for hard burn."

"Aye Captain!"

_Something Delicate_ lifted out of the crater, slowly at first, then accelerating as she scrambled for open space before she was detected by the two Cylon vessels distantly visible against the scorched backdrop of Tauron. As she sped away from the moon the _Delicate_'s reactor vents opened and her hindquarters began to glow orange like her arthropod namesake. Then there was the blinding flash of a controlled hydrogen explosion, propelling Asagi and her crew away from their home planet and out into open space at over sixty million miles an hour.

--

"I want all our Raptors outfitted for combat," Yukari was saying. "Missile pods, guns, swallows, comm drones, everything."

Kurosawa nodded and jotted it down on her notepad. They were in Yukari's quarters, discussing their next plan of attack. "I'll get the deck crew working on it." She hesitated, then asked, "What about the order to meet up with the _Galactica_ at Ragnar?"

Yukari looked at her as though she'd just suggested eating out of the waste reclamation tanks. "See, this is why _I'm_ the Commander," she said.

"What?" Kurosawa asked. "Adama's taken command of the fleet."

"He doesn't outrank me!" Yukari said, flicking her collar pips. "And besides, Adama's an idiot. You heard about how he botched that mission at the Armistice Line." She leaned back in her chair and took a sip of ambrosia.

Kurosawa nodded. Everyone knew that was why he'd lost command of the _Valkyrie_ and had been put on the _Galactica_ with its crew of failures. "Still," she said, "we'd stand a better chance against the Cylons with another Battlestar than we would alone."

Yukari just scoffed. "_That_ old thing? It's probably been destroyed already anyway."

Kurosawa sighed. "Do you really plan to take on the entire Cylon fleet with a single Battlestar?"

"It's called guerilla warfare, I would think you'd have learned that at the academy," Yukari said.

She resisted the urge to sigh again. _I suppose it would be wrong to stage a mutiny . . . _"Yukari, we have no idea of their resources. They could have over a thousand Baseships for all we know. To stay here and fight is suicidal."

"So you want to run," Yukari said with a disgusted expression.

"Yes," Kurosawa said. Actually saying it, it felt less cowardly. "This war was over before it began. We lost."

"Abandon all those people back on the Colonies," Yukari said, gazing at her XO with undisguised contempt.

"Oh wake up, Yukari!" Kurosawa snapped. "There's no one left to save! The wireless freqs have been dead since Adama sent his order. And do you actually believe any other planets got off any better than Sagitarron?"

Yukari's voice turned cold. "We are not leaving," she said.

"Sir, I really think-"

"Leave this room while you're still a Colonel," she interrupted her.

_Hopeless,_ Kurosawa thought as she stood, saluted, and strode out of the Commander's quarters. _If I don't do something about her soon,_ she thought, _she's going to get us all killed._

* * *

**-Author Notes-**

Okay, who didn't see Torako surviving the attack coming a mile away? Yeah shut up, it serves the plot.

Also yes, _Firefly_-class transports exist in the Galactica universe. Don't believe me? Watch the window while Roslin's at the doctor's office in the pilot miniseries. I'm taking some liberties with the tech for consistency, however. _Colonial Heavy 798_ was clocking around sixty-one million miles an hour on its way to the _Galactica,_ so I went with a speed somewhere around there.


	4. Salvage

While Kurosawa was relaying the Commander's orders and the Commander was ramping up her blood alchohol content, the pilots were in their rec room conducting their own memorial service.

"To Scorpio." Aida raised her glass before gulping down the liquor.

"Scorpio!" Inoue echoed, slamming hers down on the table. They were both well on their way to plastered.

"Aerilon!" Static called from across the pilot's rec room, echoed by Bug and three others.

"Tauron!" Wallflower shouted, already quite drunk.

"To Tauron!" Tomo answered with her own raised glass before throwing her head back and gulping it down.

Across the table Kagura picked up their bottle and climbed unsteadily up on her chair. "To payback!" she shouted, pumping the bottle into the air, and the room roared their assent. "To payback!" she repeated, pumping her fist again. "So say we all!"

"SO SAY WE ALL!" came the room's response.

"For Picon!" Kagura shouted. "For Tauron!" She glanced down at Tomo. "For Scorpio!" Aida and Inoue. "For Aerilon!" Static and Bug. "And for all the others! SO SAY WE ALL!"

"SO SAY WE ALL!"

"SO SAY WE ALL!"

"SO SAY WE ALL!"

--

"Captain, get up here."

"What's up?" Asagi asked as she reached the cockpit. "Cylons?"

Torako shook her head. "No, jackpot." She pointed out the window at the Battlestar hanging dead in space, cracked in half and surrounded by the remains of its Vipers.

"What did _that?_" Asagi asked.

Torako shook her head as she took them in. "I don't know, but it looks mostly intact. Should have something we can use." She reached up and grabbed the ship's comm. "Shimauu, get ready to suit up. We're going outside."

Asagi didn't bother pointing out that military hardware was strictly off limits to salvagers, and that anyone found doing so would be in some serious trouble. Given what was going on she figured if anyone caught them red-handed it would be the Cylons, and if that happened they'd be in deep shit no matter _what_ they happened to be doing at the time. As Torako took them in close she pointed out the window. "Torako, be careful."

Her pilot nodded. "I see it. Ordinance poppin' off all over the place. Could make things dangerous, but at least it'll help to conceal us too."

"'Could'?" Asagi asked. She knew admittedly little about the sorts of things Battlestars fired from those big guns of theirs, but she was pretty sure most of them made very big explosions. She was starting to wonder if this was such a good idea as the _Delicate_ settled onto the shadows in the inner side of the starboard flight pod. The ship was _just_ too wide to fit onto the deck, as they were disappointed to learn.

Torako got up and headed through the hatch to the gangway. "We'll check the hangar deck first," she said as Asagi followed her through the forward hallway to the cargo hold. "With any luck there should be something in the parts lockers." They reached the gangway heading down into the hold. "If we don't find anything there, we can always try cannibalizing the drive from a Raptor, either in bits and pieces or the whole thing. It'd shorten our legs, but it would still be better than nothing."

"Do you know your way around a Battlestar?" Asagi asked, sounding nervous. Their EVA suits didn't have an unlimited supply of oxygen.

Torako shrugged as they headed down. "We went on that tour of the _Acropolis_ in high school, remember? That was the same type as this one." She paused and thought. "Actually, is _this_ the _Acropolis_?"

"I don't like this," Asagi said as they crossed the catwalk. Below them Simauu was waiting by the airlock. She'd already suited up, and was holding her helmet under one arm. "It's too dangerous."

"Not as dangerous as the alternative," Torako said as they turned down yet another gangway. "We'll be fine, you just worry about keeping an eye on DRADIS."

"Are we going or not?" Shimauu called over to them as they finally reached the floor of the hold. "This thing's heavy."

"Yeah, yeah, gimme a minute." Torako headed for the locker to get suited up herself. Asagi watched her friend start to put on the bulky space suit before heading back to the cockpit to keep an eye on things outside.

--

Yuri Sakaki sat down and rubbed her eyes. When the injured from their battle above Sagitarron had begun flowing in, she found herself thinking fondly on the post-shore leave days of oozing sores and peeling rashes. There were so many burn victims here now that she wondered if they weren't in danger of running out of morpha. As she tried to ignore the din of anguished moans and cries of pain she looked over at Major Kimura, moving among the injured. As creepy as the man was, she had to admire his dedication to the welfare of his patients.

Sakaki checked her watch and stood. _Well, time to get back to work._ She rubbed her gritty eyes again and wondered when she would be able to sleep. Soon, she hoped; she didn't like the idea of taking stims.

"Miss Sakaki!"

She turned to see a short young officer coming towards her through the rows of beds and curtains. "Ah, Chiyo." She waved. "You're not hurt, are you?"

Lieutenant Chiyo Mihama shook her head as she reached her. "No, I just wanted to visit you. Are you all right?"

Sakaki nodded and looked around the sick bay. "I'm all right, just tired. Kimura's had us working non-stop since the battle."

Chiyo followed her as she went back to her rounds. "So many people were hurt, it's really terrible!"

Sakaki looked down at Chiyo. "How are you doing with all this? Are you very afraid?"

"Of course not!" Chiyo shook her head and put on a brave face. "I'm a Lieutenant now, I can handle this!"

Sakaki couldn't help but smile. This child prodigy from Caprica was the youngest person on the ship, and hated being treated like a kid. Of all the crew, Lieutenant Mihama probably had the brightest future. Or at least she would have, if recent events hadn't taken place. "It's okay to be afraid," Sakaki said. "I am."

"You are?" Chiyo asked. "But you're so cool!"

She didn't bother trying to deny that. It wasn't that she believed it, it was just that no matter how hard she tried she couldn't seem to convince anyone that she wasn't the lone wolf that they thought she was, so she'd learned to give up trying. Especially with Chiyo, who wanted more than anything to be tall and mature (in appearance, anyway) like she was. "Everyone feels afraid sometimes," she said.

Chiyo nodded and clenched her hands nervously. "I guess I _am_ a little afraid," she said. "It's so scary, all those planets being bombed like that . . . all those people . . ."

Sakaki stopped. She'd been around Chiyo long enough to know what was coming.

Chiyo's eyes began to well up with tears. "My . . . family and my friends . . ." She tried to continue, but it just degenerated into sobs as she was led to a chair.

Sakaki grabbed some tissues from a nearby exam table and knelt down beside her. "It's all right," she said. "I'm sure everything will turn out all right in the end."

"You . . . really think so?" Chiyo asked and sniffed.

Sakaki nodded and smiled, though she wasn't feeling particularly optimistic.

--

"Tomo."

Tomo waved her hand and made an annoyed sound. She was leaning back in her chair with an arm over her eyes, balanced on the two back legs with her foot hooked around the table's leg to support her. She stank of booze, along with just about everyone else in the room. Sobriety didn't seem to be a factor of the pilots' grief management.

"Hey Numbnuts!" Someone kicked her foot from around the table leg, and she fell back with a surprised shout. As she went her legs kicked out in a vain attempt to balance, knocking the table over onto Kagura and sending the bottles and glasses crashing to the floor. Koyomi Mizuhara jumped back to avoid the wreckage.

"You got a visitor," Kagura said as she righted the table and as Tomo picked herself up off the floor.

Tomo blinked stupidly at Koyomi before the information worked its way through the drunken haze and her face lit up. "Yomiiiii!!" she squealed and stumbled through the spilled drinks and broken glass to wrap her arms around the taller girl.

"Ugh, you smell like a distillery," Koyomi said, wrinkling her nose.

"Never mind that, le'ss make out," Tomo slurred.

Koyomi gently pushed her away. "Uh, let's not."

Tomo was too drunk to care that she'd just been denied. "So whassha want?" she asked as she picked up her chair and sat down. Kagura hooked one from an adjacent table and pulled it over for Koyomi.

She shrugged as she sat down. "I thought I should come see how you're doing," she said. "We haven't really spoken since the attack."

Tomo slapped drunkenly at the air in front of her face. "Ahh I'm fine!"

"No, you're drunk," Kagura said as she slouched in her chair.

"So're you, so i'ss ok," she said and leaned forward on the table.

They all looked across the room as Aida and another pilot called Handlebarz tried to comfort a sobbing Inoue.

"I hear the Commander's planning on taking on the entire Cylon fleet," Koyomi said.

"That woman's detached from reality," Kagura said with a burp. As she began to sober up, her desire to stay alive began to overpower her desire for revenge.

"Ahh, yer both cowards!" Tomo said angrily and pounded on the table. "I'm g'nna killus many o' those toastersus I can!"

They ignored her. "I think Colonel Kurosawa might have to relieve her of command," Koyomi said.

"Mutiny? Don't they shoot you for that?"

Koyomi shrugged. "That's assuming there's anyone left out there to try us."

"WAAAAAAH!!" Tomo wailed, tears suddenly streaming down her face. "My family's DEAD!!"

--

"Okay, we're at the airlock," a very much alive Torako Takino said over the wireless as she and Shimauu reached the heavy metal door set into the wall of the flight deck. The wheel spun, the door swung inward, and they were aboard the derelict Battlestar. Their flashlights cut through the airless silence as they made their way through the darkened corridor in what they hoped was the right direction. "The hangar deck is below us, so we just need to head down and we should be there," Torako said, more to herself than to anyone else.

"This is a little creepy," Shimauu's voice said into her ears.

She nodded, though the motion didn't translate through the helmet. "Captain," she said, "how's it looking out there?"

"No contacts yet," said Asagi's voice. "What about you guys?"

They stopped as they came to a hatch. "Hold on," Torako said and spun the wheel. She felt the vibration through her gloves as she swung it open, but it made no sound in the vacuum. "Waagh!" she yelled involuntarily and jumped back a step, nearly colliding with Shimauu.

"What is it? Torako?!"

"Nothing, we're fine," Torako said as she shined her light on the cloudy-eyed face of a young man in an orange jumpsuit. "We just found one of the crew." Beyond him she could see more shapes floating in the darkness. She turned to Shimauu. "You okay?"

She looked away from the corpse and nodded. "I think so," she said.

Torako nodded and forced herself to push the body away. As they stepped through the hatch it went spinning off, colliding with another member of the deck crew. The two bodies became entangled, spinning together in a grotesque zero-gravity dance. "Okay," she said as they made their way along the catwalk above the deck, "Let's see what we can find."


	5. Moments in Transition

Commander Yukari Tanizaki flipped the pages of the printout with a confused look on her face. She turned the paper sideways, then upside down. She viewed them up close, then at arm's length. She even tried unfocusing her eyes as if the lines of computer code were one of those images with a hidden picture. Finally she looked at the two Lieutenants standing on the other side of the plotting table. "What the hell _is_ this?"

"It's part of the CNP's base code," Mizuhara said. "Do you see the parts we've highlighted?"

Yukari looked. Three whole pages were highlighted. "How many markers did you go through?" she asked.

Mizuhara looked down at the shorter girl standing beside her. Mihama realized it was her cue. "That seems to be an embedded virus," she explained. "Once activated it would have used our computer network to shut down systems across the ship and leave us completely open to attack."

Yukari shouted and flung the printout onto the table.

"...It's a _computer_ virus," Kurosawa said beside her.

"I knew that, it was a _joke,_" Yukari said as she tried to play off wiping her hands on her jacket as straightening her uniform before turning back to Mihama. "It's no threat now though, right?"

Her twin pigtails wobbled as she shook her head. "No, we haven't reactivated the CNP yet, so the virus can't be switched on."

"I was going to purge the program from our systems, with your approval," Mizuhara said. "I'd also recommend de-networking the computers so if the Cylons do manage to hack in they won't be able to shut us down."

Yukari glanced at Kurosawa, who nodded. "Okay, do it," she said then. "And good job finding this, you two."

Mizuhara shook her head. "Oh, no, it was Mihama who found the problem."

Yukari beamed down at the blushing Lieutenant. "We're lucky we have such a brilliant mind with us," she said, before her face suddenly turned threatening. "Don't get cocky, you little runt."

"Er . . . yes sir," Mihama said nervously.

Kurosawa was looking at the lines of code, though she couldn't make any more sense of them than Yukari. "Someone put this virus into the program?" she asked.

Mizuhara nodded. "It looks that way, sir."

"Then that would mean . . ." She looked up from the pages. "We were betrayed?"

Yukari couldn't decide whether to be shocked or angry. "Who the frakking hell would betray their own people like that?!" she asked. "I hope when they catch this guy, they-"

"Who is 'they,' exactly?" Kurosawa asked.

Yukari shrugged. "I don't know, somebody?"

Mizuhara and Mihama looked uncomfortable.

Kurosawa shook her head. "Anyway, they're probably dead along with everyone else. I doubt the Cylons would have spared them." She turned to the Lieutenants. "Thank you for bringing this to our attention. You can go back to work now." As they nodded and returned to their stations she looked at Yukari. "What?"

"You dismissed them," she said.

"What, did you want to say something to them?"

"No, but _I'm_ the Commander," Yukari said. "If anyone's going to be dismissing anybody, it's _me!_"

Kurosawa just nodded. "I'll try to remember that."

--

Captain Mai Kagura tapped her pen on the arm of her chair and looked over the pilot roster. With fewer pilots now, things would have to be shuffled around to fill the gaps. People would have to be moved from night rotation to day and vice versa, and others would have to be paired with other pilots they didn't usually fly with.

After a minute she wrote a pair of names on a sheet of paper. Static and Bug would definitely still fly CAP together, they always worked best when paired up. She could probably pair up Handlebarz and Crayon too, she thought as she wrote their names down. Numbnuts she'd probably better keep as her number two, nobody else seemed willing to fly with her. _Well if she wouldn't fly like an epileptic mosquito . . ._

Kagura sighed and rested her head on her hand. Man, being the commander of the _Sea Slug_'s air group really sucked. When the Commander had given her the position she'd had her doubts that she'd be up to it, but when she heard that it was Colonel Kurosawa who'd recommended her she felt she owed it to her to give it her best shot. Before making Colonel and becoming the _Slug_'s XO last year Kurosawa had been CAG, and she had acted as a mentor for Kagura and many others. As CAG Kurosawa had always put the pilots under her command before everything, and Kagura and many others had come to almost idolize her. If Kurosawa had recommended her to scrub out the waste reclamation system with a toothbrush Kagura would have had those tanks gleaming.

It was awfully hard sometimes, though. Though she would be the first to admit she was a damn good pilot, Kagura had never had much of a head for paperwork, and the daily briefings bored her almost to tears. _Ugh,_ it didn't help that she was still a little hung over from last night, either. Or that Tomo and Yomi had taken up their duty locker for nearly three hours, forcing her to wait until they were done before she could get some sleep. At least they'd remembered to hang a pair of boots outside this time. Kagura didn't have any objections to their relationship, but that didn't mean she wanted to walk in on them.

She had to admit though that all this tedious work kept her mind off what was going on around her. If she didn't have an air wing to manage she'd probably just be spending all her time in her rack mourning her lost family and friends, or in the rec room drowning those sorrows in alcohol. She wrote down a couple more names and stopped turning back and forth in her chair. _I've just gotta look at this as a challenge,_ she thought. _I can do this if I go all out._ She leaned forward, forcing her mind clear of any reservations and mental blocks, and began dividing names by shift rotation.

--

Asagi leaned back from her console and rubbed her eyes. _Ahh, this was boring._ She put her feet up and looked across the cabin at the empty pilot's chair. She had to spend some time at the helm if Torako was going to get any rest, though. She suddenly felt very protective of her pilot; they'd been together all through high school and college, and now she was all she had left of her old life. Her family was gone, either vaporized by a nuclear blast or killed by the radiation. She hoped it was the former. Though she'd teased her family constantly, joked that their constantly working father was dead, antagonized her mother and her sister Fuuka, they were still her family, and now she'd never see them again. Mom and dad, awkward Fuuka and serious Ena, hell, even their weird neighbors the Koiwais. She was almost having trouble believing that they were all gone forever. Torako and Shimauu were the only family she had now; in fact, as far as she knew they were the only other humans left alive.

She heard footsteps coming up the gangway and turned to see Shimauu stepping through the hatch. She'd never really spoken to Fuuka's friend before she joined their crew; in fact, she'd always found her a little annoying, with her odd sense of humor and her obsession with coming up with little dances for every task. Funny how they'd probably be spending the rest of their lives together now. "How's that FTL coming?" she asked.

Shimauu walked forward to look out the window at the stars outside and stretched her back. "Ugh, our drive doesn't seem to like those parts we brought back," she said. "I'm probably gonna have to do some serious jerry-rigging if we want it to work."

Asagi sighed and leaned her head back. _I hate Fireflies,_ she thought to herself. "So what are you doing up here?" she asked.

Shimauu crossed her arms and shrugged. "Taking a break. I've been working in the engine room ever since we left the Battlestar." That was nearly twenty hours ago.

Asagi rubbed at her face. _Idiot,_ she thought, _if you don't get that FTL running we're all dead if the Cylons find us._ She looked at Shimauu though, standing there looking out at the star-studded black, and knew she couldn't tell her to get her skinny ass back to work. "How're you handling all this?" she asked instead.

Shimauu shrugged and turned to her. "I try not to think about it," she said. "I just pretend we're on another delivery run, and that everything's fine back home . . ." She looked back outside and Asagi could see she was fighting back tears.

"Hey," Asagi said as she took her feet off her console and sat forward. "We're going to be fine, you'll see. We'll get that FTL running and we'll find some nice planet to make a home on."

"A lot of room to get lost out there," Shimauu said in a shaky voice.

"You see those stars?" Asagi asked and pointed out the window. "How many are there? Ena told me once that there are hundreds of billions of stars in this galaxy alone." Asagi thought back to that night, when they had visited their grandparents out in the country and the three sisters had sat out on the back porch looking up at the night sky away from the city glare. "And of those hundreds of billions of stars, chances are good that a few billion of those have planets orbiting them. And of those billions of planets, there are probably millions capable of supporting life. We just need to find one."

Shimauu was gazing out at the stars with a new expression now, one approaching hope. "A new home . . ." she said quietly, almost to herself. "Just like the Great Exodus, when the Thirteen Tribes left Kobol." She laughed then, and turned back to Asagi. "Who knows, maybe we'll find Kobol itself, or even Earth!"

Asagi shrugged. "Who knows, maybe." _Fat frakkin' chance._ "For now though, I think you should get some sleep."

When Shimauu had retired to her quarters, Asagi returned to vegetating at her console. Then an idea struck her, and she hurried down the forward hallway to her own quarters. As soon as she'd found what she was looking for she returned to the helm and sat back down. Before settling in she leaned forward and placed a framed picture of her family on her console.


	6. Operation Sucker Punch

Kaori Aida, callsign Stammer, felt like she would lose her mind. Her nose itched, but she couldn't scratch it through her helmet. As she flew she scrunched her face up, but that didn't help. She wondered if she should just take her helmet off and scratch it; the Raptor's cabin was pressurized, after all. Better make sure nothing was about to fly up their ass first. "Anything?" she asked back to her ECO.

Seated in the back of the cabin at her DRADIS console, Chihiro Inoue, callsign Flaps, shook her head. "Nothing but hash," she said.

Kaori nodded and reached up to pull off her helmet and scratch her nose. _Ahh, relief. _She was just pulling her helmet back on when she saw something that made her bring the Raptor's nose up and fire the ventral RCS thrusters, bringing the little ship to a fast stop. As she gazed up at the area of space to their ten-o'clock, Chihiro leaned back away from the DRADIS console and looked up at her. "What's up?"

"I thought I saw . . . there," Kaori said as she saw them again. "Cylons." The unmistakeable claw-winged silhouettes of Cylon Raiders, flitting between the asteroids. Distant though they were, barely visible against the black, she would recognize them anywhere. She allowed herself a few shots with their gun camera before she flipped their bird over and accelerated away. "Do you think they saw us?"

Chihiro shrugged. "I don't know." DRADIS hadn't even picked them up in this soup.

Kaori nodded. "Okay, well spin us up."

As soon as the FTL was spooled and the coordinates were double-checked, Kaori pushed the red button on her console, the canopy flashed white, and the _Sea Slug _was once again dominating the scene outside.

--

"You only stayed long enough to get these shots?" Yukari asked disgustedly at the pilot and her ECO standing across the map table in the _Slug's _Situation Room. "Why didn't you stick around to get a better idea of their forces? Or better yet, use those _frakking missile pods we bolted onto the sides of your ship?_"

"Not everyone here loves going on suicide missions, Commander," Colonel Kurosawa said.

"You stay out of this," Yukari snapped.

At another edge of the table, Kagura nodded. "The Colonel's right, they'd have been blown out of the sky if they'd tried to take them on." She picked up one of the photographs. "We'll need to do something about this recon patrol, though."

Kurosawa nodded and sighed. "I agree, we can't risk them finding us." She looked at Yukari. "Maybe we should just leave," she suggested. "We don't want to stick around in one place for too long anyway." As soon as she'd said that however, she knew their Commander wouldn't go for it.

"Why would we pass up such a golden opportunity to strike back at the enemy?!" Yukari demanded and slapped a hand on the table. "I want a full military strike! We'll jump in and hit 'em before they know what's going on!"

The XO and CAG exchanged looks across the table, as if trying to decide who should be the one to speak first. Finally Kurosawa took the bait. "Sir, I don't think it's a good idea to take the whole ship. What if it's a trap?"

As much as she hated to volunteer to walk her pilots through a minefield, Kagura had to agree. "This is close enough to reach by Viper, we can check it out. Probably bring some Raptors along for support."

"Or we could jump the _Slug_ in, but outside the range of their DRADIS. Use Raptors as listening birds to relay the action."

"Do we know what kind of range those things have?" Kagura asked.

Kurosawa shrugged. "Not really, but if they didn't pick up Stammer and Flaps back there we can get a pretty good idea of how far they can see in that hash."

Yukari looked back and forth between her Executive Officer and the commander of her air group and finally sighed bitterly. "Alright, _fine._"

Kurosawa nodded. "I'd like to help Captain Kagura plan the op, if she doesn't mind."

Kagura shook her head. "Oh no, I don't mind." To be honest she'd been thinking of asking for her help anyway, drawing up battle plans for war games and for actual combat were two very different things. They both ignored Yukari as she rolled her eyes and made kissy-faces.

"In the meantime," Kurosawa said, "I think we'd better send a Raptor to shadow the Cylon patrol. We don't want to get out there and find out they've all jumped away."

"Or that it's a trap," Kagura added, then turned to Kaori and Chihiro. "You two up for it?"

They looked at each other and nodded. "Yes sir," Kaori said.

"Okay, good. Remember, if they spot you no heroics, just jump your asses back here."

Chihiro laughed. "No worries there."

Kagura saluted. "Then good hunting, ladies," she said.

--

A flash swept across a region of space as it was folded and torn, and then the _Sea Slug_ was prowling among the asteroids. Vented atmosphere puffed at the edge of her starboard flight pod, followed swiftly by the Vipers of Blue Squadron. Support Raptors emerged from the launch bay and took formation behind them.

"_Sea Slug _Shiisa," Kagura said over the wireless, "Commencing Operation Sucker-Punch." The Commander had insisted on naming the op.

"Roger that Shiisa," Kurosawa'se voice came back. "Good hunting."

"Gods, why don't you just _marry_ her," Yukari said across the plotting table in CIC.

Kurosawa ignored that. "Stammer, how're things looking out there?"

"Looks like they're just taking their time out there," they heard Kaori say. "They seem to be checking out a pretty big asteroid right now."

"Maybe they're not even looking for us," Chihiro said. "They might just be looking for tylium or something."

"Why would they do that?" Yukari asked.

Kurosawa shrugged. "They'd need fuel just as much as we do."

"_Frakberries,_ aren't we there yet?"

"Cut the chatter Numbnuts," Shiisa said. "ETA is six minutes. Stay frosty, people."

--

In her cockpit Tomo looked impatiently over at her wingman's Viper, and then around at the rest of the squadron. The sleek gray-blue Mark VIIs cut through the vacuum like a school of spaceborne sharks, keen on the scent of their prey. She sighed and checked her watch.

"Okay, we've got visual," Shiisa said over the wireless, and when she peered forward Tomo could see the familiar silhouettes of Cylon Raiders against an oblong asteroid larger than the _Sea Slug_. She'd only flown against them once, but she'd never forget that deadly sleek shape. "Let's get ready to rock."

"Hell yeah, let's do this!" Tomo yelled as Blue Squadron accelerated for the attack.

Almost immediately the distant Raiders came about, arrowing straight for them. "Oh frak, they see us," Handlebarz said.

"Let 'em come," Shiisa said. "All Vipers, break break break!"

Tomo brought her nose up and pulled back on the throttle as Blue Squadron broke formation, revealing the line of Raptors flying behind them. Then space was filled with swaying trails of exhaust as they fired into the approaching swarm.

--

"Torako, get up here!"

Torako lifted her head from her pillow and mumbled groggily. "Whuzzah?"

"Get your skinny ass up here, that's an order!"

Asagi heard running footsteps approaching, and Torako appeared through the hatch. "What is it?" she asked as she went straight to her pilot's chair. She hadn't even bothered putting on shoes.

"Look at your DRADIS."

Torako flicked a switch and peered at the screen. "When did that show up?" she asked as she watched the single contact hover in the field of blue.

"Just now," Asagi said.

"It's got a Colonial transponder," Torako said and looked across the room at her captain. "It's one of ours." She allowed herself a smile.

Asagi nodded. "Let's go say hello."

It was a Raptor. As _Something Delicate _approached, they could see the little vessel was in pretty bad shape. The engines had been shot out, a wing was blown off, and it was leaking oxygen and fuel. Asagi waved weakly at the mangled ship as it spun lazily in space. "Hello," she said.

With a face that said it was an exercise in futility Torako picked up her wireless handset. "This is the transport _Something Delicate, _does anyone read?"

They looked at each other in shock when they heard static crackle over the speakers and a voice responded. "Oh hey, you found me!" They sounded pretty out of it; oxygen deprivation? "My Raptor got shot up pretty bad . . . I guess I ticked 'em off, huh?"

Asagi grabbed her own handset. "Are you all right? What's your situation?"

As they got in closer they could see a figure waving at them through the Raptor's cracked canopy. "I see you! My ECO's dead, but I'm okay. I'm running out of air though."

"Okay sit tight," Asagi said, "we're gonna pick you up."

"Thanks a lot," the Raptor pilot said.

Asagi got up from her console. "I'm gonna suit up and meet her outside, so bring us in close and line us up, okay?"

Torako eyed the spinning craft skeptically. "I think you might be overestimating my piloting skills."

"Just do your best," Asagi said before disappearing through the hatch.

--

"Gods _damn_ it I hate falling for shit!" Kagura flipped her bird and squeezed the trigger. The Raider on her tail jinked to the side out of her line of fire, and she desperately jerked her nose towards it as it closed on her. Then it was speared by three lines of red tracer fire, and she saw her wingman's Viper blur through the bloody wreckage.

"WHOO YEAH!" Numbnuts whooped over the wireless. "Oh gross, I got blood all over my Viper!"

"Thanks Numbnuts," Kagura said as she took off after her. _Never leave your leader, idiot!_

"You owe me one now," Numbnuts said as she turned after another one. Kagura swept to the side and fired, blasting a Raider apart as it was taking a bead on her wingman.

"Now we're even," she said.

The attack had been going good there, too. After the Raptors had fired their missiles and taken out nearly half the Cylon force, Blue Squadron had engaged the rest. They turned and ran, and like an idiot Kagura had given the order to pursue and destroy. Then the reinforcements had appeared around the limb of the asteroid.

How many pilots had they lost so far? Crayon had bought it almost immediately, along with Slinky and Doormat. Dead Meat had lived up to her callsign spectacularly, and Flamer's had proved similarly appropriate.

"_Sea Slug _Shiisa, this whole operation's FUBAR, we're getting cut to pieces out here! Handlebarz, your six!"

"I can't shake him!" Handlebarz yelled frantically as her Viper swung crazily from side to side in a vain attempt to lose her pursuer.

"He's mine!" Numbnuts shouted and tore off after the Raider.

"Gods _dammit _Lieutenant you're supposed to be flying my wing!" Kagura shouted as she found herself following her number two again.

--

"Those idiots!" Yukari spat like a curse, staring up at the DRADIS. "They flew headfirst into a trap!"

"It was _your_ idea to attack in the first place!" Kurosawa said angrily before shaking her head. "They're getting torn apart. How fast can we get reinforcements out there?"

Lieutenant Mizuhara shook her head. "We're still seven minutes out." She looked terrified, and Kurosawa couldn't blame her; Takino was out there in the soup, and their affair was one of the worst kept secrets on the ship.

Kurosawa looked up at the screen. "This'll be _over_ in seven minutes." She sighed. "Commander, we need to jump in there."

"I thought you said it was unwise," Yukari said, a little petulantly.

"It is, but if we don't then we'll lose those pilots out there."

Yukari laughed. "Ha, finally we get to do what _I_ want to do! Mizuhara, jump us in there! Get all remaining Vipers in the tubes. I want action stations, people!"

--

Kagura was closing in for the kill on a Raider when she was blinded by a flash of light and the _Sea Slug_ was suddenly filling her sky. "Oh holy _frak!_" she swore as the Raider exploded against the warship's hull and she pulled up hard on her stick to keep from doing the same. The silver armor plating covering the port flight pod blurred underneath her Viper as she barely missed colliding with the Battlestar.

"The cavalry has arrived!" Commander Tanizaki crowed over the wireless as the _Sea Slug_ launched its remaining Viper squadrons to join Blue in their renewed offensive.

--

By the time Torako had reached the cargo hold Asagi was helping their new passenger get her helmet off. The pilot took a deep breath and looked over at her with a wide vacant smile. "Hi there! Fancy meeting you out here."

"Uh, hi," Torako said.

The Raptor pilot turned her eyes to Asagi as she pulled off her own helmet. "Welcome aboard the _Delicate,_" she said. "I'm Captain Asagi Ayase, and this is my pilot, Torako Takino."

The pilot closed her eyes and bowed politely. "I'm Lieutenant Ayumu Kasuga. But everyone usually calls me by my callsign."

They waited for her to say what that was, but she just stood there smiling.

". . . And that would be . . .?" Asagi asked.

"Huh? Oh. Osaka."

Asagi and Torako exchanged glances. _This certainly was a strange one, all right._

"Well Osaka," Asagi said, "why don't we get moving again, and then we can all get acquainted."

"Where we goin'?" Osaka asked hazily.

Torako paused on her way back up to the helm and shrugged. "Don't know, really. Got any ideas?"

Osaka just stared blankly and shrugged.

--

"Okay, so we know where the _Sea Slug _was until recently." The Six drummed her fingers on the edge of the data font. "But what's to stop them from simply jumping to the other side of the system?"

"Their commander is an idiot," said the Five. "At best she'll simply order a jump to another part of the belt. She won't want to give up the convenient cover of the asteroids."

"I hope you're right," the Six said. "That little stunt cost us quite a few Raiders."

"They're being downloaded into new bodies as we speak," said the Three to her left. "And now that we've confirmed their location, we can set our plan into motion."

The Six shook her head. "I don't like this. It all depends too heavily on the humans making boneheaded decisions."

"They fell for such an obvious trap, didn't they?" the Five asked.

The Six had to concede that point.

"Don't worry," the Five said. "Everything is going as planned. Our agent will be there soon, and then we can cross one more Battlestar off the list."


	7. Busy Little Bees

"So we're gettin' outta the system?" Osaka said as they all sat around the table in the _Delicate_'s dining area. Shimauu yawned while Torako allowed herself a cigarette. Though she usually kept a few cartons onboard for long delivery runs, she'd have to start conserving if she didn't want to run out.

Asagi nodded and sipped her tea. "Out of Colonial space entirely, in fact. Unless you know anything we don't about the situation out there."

Osaka shook her head. "While I was floatin' out there I listened to the wireless, but I never picked nothin' up 'cept that call to meet at Ragnar."

"That was nearly forty-eight hours ago," Torako said. "How long were you out there?"

She shrugged.

"How'd you keep breathing?" Asagi asked.

"I heard you breathe slower when you sleep, so I took a nap. An' I used my ECO's air when I ran out."

"I don't suppose you know much about fixing jump drives?" Shimauu asked.

Osaka's eyes glazed over. "Huh?"

"Guess that's a no," Torako said and took a sip of her coffee.

Osaka closed her eyes and flapped her hand next to her head. "No way, I'm no good with any of that stuff. They wouldn't even let me jump my Raptor."

"Not to sound too demanding," Asagi asked, "but is there anything you _are_ good at?"

"Hmm . . ." Osaka looked up at the ceiling as she thought. Asagi exchanged glances with her crew. "Ah! I'm good at crossword puzzles."

"That's . . . good," Torako said. _Wonderful_, the person who should be the most capable one on the ship now was totally useless.

"No, that was a lie," Osaka said apologetically.

"Are you sure you didn't take a knock on the head back there?" Asagi asked.

"Well," Torako said as she stood up with her coffee, "I'm gonna get up to the helm."

"I'll get back to work on that FTL," Shimauu said and got up as well.

"Guess I'll get you some quarters," Asagi said as she pushed away from the table as well. "Luckily it's just us three here, so there's plenty of room."

"They call them quarters," Osaka said, as if to herself. Her face had returned to its usual blank grin. "What are they a quarter of?"

"That's uh . . . that's a good question," Asagi said as she led her through the hatch to the rear of the ship.

--

"Fifteen pilots lost," Kurosawa said. "Nearly half the strike force, dead."

Yukari nodded. "I know, I read the tally." She looked gutted, but in her anger Kurosawa couldn't help but wonder if it was genuine.

She leaned across the plotting table as the command crew tried to go about their duties and ignore them. "How many of these idiotic attacks do you plan on sending those kids on?"

"We are not leaving the Colonies to the Cylons!" Yukari insisted again. "We're at _war, _Nyamo! People tend to die in wars, or were you not paying attention in our history classes?" Her expression turned to one of anger. "Do you think I _like _it when those kids die out there?"

"They don't have to," Kurosawa said.

"Yes, they _do!_" Yukari snapped back at her, way too loud. "We have to win, whatever it takes! And if that means I have to send every last pilot on this ship to their death, then that's what I'll do. I won't like it, but you better believe I'll do it."

Kurosawa glanced beyond Yukari at Mizuhara. She didn't look too pleased right now, and she knew she wasn't the only one on this ship that would feel that way if they'd heard Yukari just now. "Sir, permission to speak freely," she said.

"You don't have it," Yukari said. "Dismissed, Colonel."

Kurosawa fumed inside as she stood to attention and saluted. "I stand dismissed." She could feel the crew watching her as she left CIC and headed down the corridor.

Koyomi watched the XO leave and then turned back to her station. She glanced to one side at Lieutenant Mihama, staring nervously at the Commander as she leaned back against the plotting table and picked at her fingernails with the end of a paperclip. Then she turned her head and looked over at Ohyama. The Communications Officer met her gaze and she knew he felt the same way she did. They both had a pilot to worry about; Tomo was hers, and he had that crush on Handlebarz. As she looked back to the DRADIS Koyomi found herself hoping that the Colonel really would mutiny against Commander Tanizaki, and swearing that if that moment came she would do what she could to help.

--

Captain Kagura raised her head as the Situation Room's hatch opened and Colonel Kurosawa came storming through. "That . . . that woman!" she almost shouted, stabbing a finger back in the direction she'd come for emphasis.

"Who?" Lieutenant Takino put her magazine down across her chest and looked across the room at the XO from where she lay on her back atop the map table.

Kurosawa came to a stop at the CAG's desk. "The Commander, who else? She's determined to get us all killed for her stupid crusade!" She looked at the floor as she forced herself to calm down. Though Yukari openly hated the hyperkinetic pilot, Kurosawa knew that Takino was a supporter of her command methods, so she'd better watch what she said around her. She turned to the CAG; she knew she could count on _her_ support.

"What's going on?" Kagura asked. The pilot roster sat at her elbows, more names crossed out. More CAP shuffling.

"Do you know what she told me?" Kurosawa asked her in a more subdued voice. "She said she'd send every last one of our pilots to die if it meant victory."

Kagura's face turned angry and bravado overtook common sense. "Over my dead body!"

"We're at war, that might become the case if you refuse her orders when she's in the wrong mood," Kurosawa said.

Tomo sat up. "Is that _legal?_"

Kurosawa sighed and nodded her head. "Summary executions are legal in a time of war, if it's an act of mutiny. Refusing to send pilots into combat could be seen as just that." She looked back at the hatch. "Not that legality really matters anymore. I wonder how long until Yukari realizes _that._"

Tomo looked back and forth from Kurosawa to Kagura. She looked like she couldn't decide which side to take. It was no secret that she wanted revenge on the Cylons almost as much as the Commander, but she obviously didn't want to be sent out to die pointlessly either. As glamorous as going out in a blaze of glory sounded, it was still going out.

"Lieutenant," Kurosawa said to her, "give us the room."

Tomo hopped down off the table and headed out the hatch.

As soon as she was out Kurosawa turned to Kagura. "We've got to do something about Tanizaki," she said. Though they were alone, she instinctively took a conspiratorial tone.

Kagura sat back in her chair. "Are you talking about mutiny?"

She hesitated, then nodded. "Yes."

"But . . ." Kagura protested. "But she's your friend! You told me you've known each other since high school!"

Kurosawa nodded again, a pained look on her face. "I know. I hate to even think it. But if this ship, this crew, is going to survive this then she _cannot remain in command._ We may be all that remains of humanity."

Kagura's face made it clear she hadn't really considered that.

"If Yukari continues on this way, we will all die and humanity will end with your generation," Kurosawa said. "We can't let that happen."

Kagura looked at the far wall as she rolled the idea over in her head. Finally her eyes met Kurosawa's and she nodded. "I'm with you, Colonel."

--

Tomo glanced back in the direction of the situation room as she rolled up the magazine and tapped it against her palm. As she passed other members of the crew they backed away, but she didn't feel like terrorizing anyone right now.

As she headed to the pilots' duty lockers she snorted to herself. _Give us the room._ Yeah, like she didn't already know what the XO wanted to discuss. Kurosawa wanted to talk about turning on the Commander, and she didn't want Tomo ratting her out. She couldn't help but feel insulted; how dumb did she think she was?

Tomo climbed up into her rack and sat down, leaning forward and swinging her legs in the air. Paying no mind to the other pilots in the locker, she reached back and got out the picture frame behind her pillow. Up to now she'd been concentrating on the tallest girl in the picture. Every time she thought to the future, the overriding need was to avenge her family; this photograph of her sister was all she had of them, and every time she looked at it Torako's face was all she saw.

Now she turned her eyes to the right, to look at the bespectacled girl standing apart from her and her sister. Koyomi Mizuhara. They had known each other since grade school, but their relationship hadn't progressed beyond mere friendship until after they'd enlisted, at officer training school.

She still had Yomi. She was here, on this ship. Whatever happened from here on out, wherever they went, they could be together. Assuming, of course, the Commander didn't send her out to get splashed by a toaster.

_Mutiny._ Though she acted as though she had a bag of sand for a brain Tomo was a lot smarter than most people, including herself, gave her credit for, and she could see plain as day that mutiny would be inevitable if Yukari's rampage was to be stopped. That woman was too stubborn and thickheaded to be made to see reason.

_So which is it Numbnuts?_ she thought to herself. _Do you avenge Torako, or save Yomi?_ She lay down in her rack and rubbed her forehead. Why did it have to be mutiny? She didn't want to betray her Commander. Tomo raised her head and looked at the picture. She didn't want to betray her Commander . . . but if she and Yomi were to have any sort of a future together, she didn't have a choice.

--

Torako was was dozing at the helm when she heard footsteps coming up the gangway and through the hatch. She opened her eyes a crack, and saw a blurry shape standing beside her. Too short to be Shimauu, and _way_ too short to be Asagi. "Mm?" She made a curious sound in her throat as she turned in her chair and opened her eyes to look at Osaka, grinning down at her. "What is it?"

Osaka's right arm swung up, hand held straight out, and Torako was looking at her sidearm. She froze, eyes darting from the pistol to Osaka's vacant-eyed face. After a long moment she found her voice. "Wha . . . what're you doing?"

"Do you have any bullets?" she asked, lazily cocking her head to the side.

Torako looked at the gun, noticing her finger wasn't on the trigger.

"Uh . . . yeah," she finally said.

Osaka lowered the pistol. "That's good. I figured we'd want to protect ourselves wherever we end up."

Torako nodded. "I agree. You know, you really shouldn't go pointing that at people."

Osaka looked at the gun in her hand. "Huh? But aren't you supposed to?"

Torako lit a cigarette. Conservation be damned, that had rattled her. "Well yes, but only if you mean to use it."

"Oh . . . " The DRADIS beeped. "What's that?"

"Huh?" Torako turned to her console. "What the hell . . ." As she watched contact after contact appeared on her screen, until she was looking at fifteen unknown vessels. Without taking her eyes off the DRADIS Torako reached up and grabbed the comm. "Captain," she said, "you need to get up here."


	8. Astronomical

As _Something Delicate_ approached, the unknown vessels came within visual range. "They're ours, all right," Torako said. "Looks like they're mostly freighters and transports."

"Why aren't they responding to hails?" Asagi asked from her console.

Torako shook her head. "Don't know. I'm reading heat and electronics so they've got power, but it looks like they're all floating dead."

"Maybe they're all asleep," Osaka suggested. They ignored her.

"I don't like this," Torako said. "_Somebody _should have said _something_ by now."

"They're missin' parts," Osaka said then, and Torako was ready to ignore her again when Asagi pointed.

"Hey, she's right, look. It looks like somebody gutted out their sublights."

As the _Delicate _came in closer and they could make out more details they saw that it looked like all of the drifting ships had indeed been stripped of their sublight engines. "What happened here?" Torako asked. "Would the Cylons have done this?"

"Why would they have left the ships though?"

Torako shrugged. "Let's go aboard one of 'em, see what we can see." She pointed at a heavy cargo stransport about the same size as the _Delicate. _"There, that one. _Gilgamesh_. Registry says it's from Tauron."

Asagi nodded, then switched her handset to the ship's comm. "Shimauu, we'll need you at the helm to watch DRADIS," she said before she got up and headed for the hatch.

Torako was bringing them in to dock with the _Gilgamesh_ when Shimauu arrived in the cabin. She was beginning to ask what was going on when she saw the ships out the window. "What's all this?" she asked.

"That's what we're going to find out," Asagi answered as she returned from the armory, buckling a pistol belt around her waist. After fastening the holster to her hip and making sure the sidearm was loaded she took another one from where it was draped over her shoulder. Once Torako had finished docking and stood up she handed her the belt.

"What're those for?" Shimauu asked, eyeing the pistols nervously.

Torako adjusted her belt. "We don't know what we're gonna find on that ship," she said around her cigarette.

Asagi motioned for the Raptor pilot to follow them down to the cargo hold. "Osaka, you're with us."

--

Upon boarding the _Gilgamesh,_ they were greeted by three men on the other side of the airlock's glass inner wall, brandishing lengths of pipe like clubs. As they approached Asagi and Torako lowered their sidearms. " . . . Mister Koiwai?" Asagi asked in disbelief.

The men relaxed and lowered their own weapons as two of them stepped forward. "Asagi? Torako?" Koiwai's voice was muffled by the heavy duty glass. "Well this certainly is a nice surprise, we thought you might be Cylons. Or the _Pegasus_ come back for more parts."

The ship's captain went to the wall and pressed the button to open the airlock's inner hatch. "Thank the gods you found us."

"What's going on here?" Asagi asked. "Why didn't you respond to hails?"

The captain shrugged. "They took our wireless! Took the DRADIS, too. We weren't up on the bridge, so we didn't see you guys comin' in." He laughed. "Took us all by surprise."

"Who took your wireless and DRADIS?" Torako asked.

"The _Pegasus,_" he spat. "The frakkin' _military, _they stripped us for parts and left us to drift. We heard they shot two families on the _Scylla_ who tried to resist."

Asagi involuntarily took a half-step back. "My gods . . . that's horrible!"

The three men cast a suspicious glance at Osaka then, in her Colonial flightsuit. She waved a hand. "Oh no, I'm from the _Triton,_" she said.

"We found her drifting," Asagi explained.

"The _Pegasus _. . . that's under Cain, isn't it?" Torako said, mostly to herself. "She's a Tauron, I think."

"Fine way to treat her own people," the ship's captain grumbled.

"How do you know that?" Asagi asked.

"My sister met her at the academy. Wouldn't shut up about it for days."

"Listen, this is all very interesting," Jumbo (What was his real name again?) said to the captain, "but we all need to get out of here. If their ship's got engines, I suggest we get the girls on it and get moving."

"Girls?" Asagi asked, feeling a twinge of hope. If Koiwai and Jumbo got out . . . "What girls?"

"I only had time to take on these six before we had to take off," the captain said as Koiwai off down a hallway. "These two had four girls with them." Jumbo had crossed his arms and was grinning proudly.

"Asagi!"

They both turned to see Koiwai returning down the hall and their mouths dropped open in disbelief.

Finally Asagi found her voice as they reached the airlock. "E . . . Ena! Fuuka! Oh my gods!" She cried as she wrapped her arms around her sisters. She even made room for Ena's friend Miura. "I thought for sure you were dead!"

"We thought you were dead too!" Ena said tearfully.

"It's good to see we were wrong," Koiwai said.

"Tora! Tora!" Torako looked down to see a green-haired child grabbing at her legs. "Did you see the mushrooms?"

She nodded down at the little girl. As much as Yotsuba could bug her, she found herself glad to see her again. "Yeah, I saw them." She turned to Koiwai and Jumbo. "So how'd you guys get off Tauron?"

"Well we were all headed out to go fishing," Koiwai explained, "and as we were on our way to the lake we saw the mushroom clouds."

"We were lucky enough to reach the spaceport in time to get onto this ship," Jumbo said.

"Asagi . . ." Fuuka was crying. "Asagi, we didn't go back for mom and dad. We left them behind."

Asagi nodded and squeezed her eyes shut as tears ran down her cheeks. "I know. What matters is that we're together again."

"I gotta say," the ship's captain said, "I find the odds of you guys finding each other to be just slightly incredible."

Koiwai nodded.

"Captain!" Shimauu's voice squawked over the wireless receiver clipped to Asagi's pistol belt. "We've got incoming, get back here!"

"Time to go," Torako said, starting back to the outer airlock hatch. By the time they reached the Delicate she was running, taking the gangway steps three at a time on her way to the helm. "What is it?" She practically yanked the ship's mechanic out of her chair and sat down.

"Looks like Cylons, a lot of 'em," Shimauu said. "They're almost on top of us!"

"_Frak,_" Torako said and grabbed the ship's comm. "Everybody'd better be aboard!"

Asagi's voice came back. "We're all aboard, get us moving!"

Torako nodded and disengaged their airlock from the _Gilgamesh._ As she pulled the _Delicate _away and yanked back on the throttle she turned to Shimauu. "Get down to the engine room, we need a hard burn."

She nodded and turned to run out the hatch, nearly colliding with Asagi and her two sisters. "Fuuka! Ena!"

"No time for a reunion now," Asagi said as she reached her console.

"We're leaving?" Fuuka asked as she looked out at the other standed ships. "But there's other people on those ships!"

Asagi shook her head. "I know, but we don't have time to help them." Then she turned to Torako. "What've we got?"

"We're leaving them to die?" Ena asked in disbelief.

Torako glanced at the DRADIS. "Ten Raiders, looks like. They're . . . oh hell, they're launching missiles." She watched in horror as every one of the fifteen civilian ships disappeared from the screen. "May the Lords of Kobol protect their souls," she said quietly.

"And have mercy on ours. If you're all going to be up here, stay out of the way," Asagi said, and Torako looked up to see the three men they'd brought aboard crowding through the hatch. Yotsuba's face appeared over the edge of her console, peering at her instruments. _Oh, great._

"Don't touch anything," Koiwai warned his daughter.

"I'll be good!" Yotsuba promised. Apparently she didn't seem to grasp the danger of the situation.

"We've got two Raiders on our tail," Torako said, then pressed the button on the comm. "Shimauu, we need that burn."

"There's a problem," Shimauu said. "I think the FTL's messing up the wiring or something. It's knocked out the firefly drive."

Asagi pounded her fist on her console. "Gods _dammit _I _hate_ this stupid frakking piece of shit ship!" she cursed.

"Well get it fixed or we're all dead!" Torako looked back at the DRADIS as it beeped. "Oh frak, two missiles. Asagi, swallows."

Outside four decoys launched from the _Delicate'_s back end, veering off at random trajectories. One of the missiles took the bait and detonated harmlessly, but the other wouldn't be deterred. Torako tried to coax more speed out of their main thrusters as she changed course, and four more of the decoys sprang from the ship's backside. This time the persistent missile fell for it. The Raiders were still following, though.

"We should head for the Abraxas belt," Osaka said. "We can hide in the rocks."

Asagi looked at her. _When did you get up here? _"Worth a shot," she said. They were already heading in that direction anyway.

"If we can make it," Torako said. "We can't outrun these guys on our mains."

"Okay, I think we got it," Shimauu said over the comm. "Please don't explode on me," she said quietly. She probably didn't mean for that to send over the comm. The Raiders were just launching another pair of missiles when they all felt a momentary tug of acceleration before the gravity drive could compensate, and then they were rocketing away at one tenth the speed of light, leaving a smokescreen of DRADIS-scrambling radiation in their wake.

* * *

**-Author Notes-**

Fun fact: While I probably would have given the _Delicate_ swallows anyway, since there's obviously a need for them (other civilian ships such as the _Adriatic_ have weapons such as missiles, so obviously there's _something_ they need to defend themselves from, I'm guessing piracy), the _Serenity _blueprints from Quantum Mechanix say that _Firefly_-class transports really do have decoy flares that can be launched from the ship's hind end. I don't know if the blueprints are considered canonical or not, but they're damn cool, so I'm using them. If you're at all into Firefly you should get their blueprints reference pack, it's only thirty bucks and ridiculously awesome.

Also, if you were wondering what the _Gilgamesh _looked like before it was stripped of its engines by the _Pegasus_ and then blown up by the Cylons, it was the same type of transport as the _Geminon Traveler_ and _Kimba Huta._


	9. Collision Course

Commander Yukari Tanizaki took the podium and cleared her throat. "We're here today to mourn the passing of fifteen brave pilots," she began. _Obviously,_ she thought, but it sounded like something one would say at a funeral. She looked up at the gathered crew. "Though their deaths were tragic, we can at least take comfort that they were for a just cause: the liberation of our Twelve Colonies of Kobol from the hands of the Cylons. These pilots did not die pointlessly. They died fighting for what is right, and for that I salute them."

_Another funeral. Another gods damned funeral._ Captain Mai Kagura looked up at the woman standing at the podium with a new contempt. _Fifteen pilots lost. Fifteen of _my_ pilots._ As CAG, Kurosawa had protected her pilots. She'd made them feel safe enough to climb into the cockpit every day. Though they'd rarely found themselves in a combat situation, when they did they knew they could count on their leader to see them through it.

_So what kind of a CAG am I?_ Kagura asked herself as she clenched her jaw. _Twenty-three of my pilots are already dead. A real fine job I'm doing of protecting them, huh?_ But she also knew that wasn't fair. She was only a Captain. If her commanding officer gave her an order, she had to carry it out. Even if that order resulted in more of her pilots dying.

So that commanding officer had to be relieved of command. She turned her eyes to the ship's XO, standing at attention near the end of the line. _We're all depending on you, Nyamo,_ she thought. _Don't let your pilots down._

Yukari continued. "There are some among you who believe that they died fighting for a lost cause. There are some among you who think we should accept defeat, give up and flee our rightful home for parts unknown, to take our chances in the depths of uncharted space." She looked up and down the rows, resting her eyes for a split second on her XO.

"To those of you who think that, I say this: you are _cowards,_" she spat like a curse. "Not only do you want to give up without a fight, but you insult the memories of those who have died fighting in this war."

Kagura clenched her fists at her side.

"Not only that, but you _spit in the faces _of the _billions_ of innocents lost in the nuclear attacks," Yukari continued and pounded a fist on the podium. "We will never give up this fight! This war will _never_ be over, until the Cylons have been driven from our homes once and for all! Do you understand me? We are not leaving! _They _are!" Yukari raised a clenched fist. "So say we all!"

Kagura kept silent when the crowd echoed back.

--

In her quarters, Torako sat down at her desk and looked at the ceiling as she heard footsteps run through the hallway above her. Judging from the sound, she guessed one of the kids. _Probably Yotsuba,_ she thought. Though they seemed to be dealing with the situation rather well, Ena and Miura had been pretty subdued. Yotsuba, on the other hand, was just as active and curious as ever. She remembered Koiwai telling her once that his adopted daughter was invincible, that nothing ever seemed to get her down for long.

She leaned back in her chair and took a drag on her cigarette. (_Yeah, great job cutting back on these,_ she thought.) So Asagi's sisters were alive. Torako had to agree with the captain of the _Gilgamesh_ (Stanley Boone, he'd said his name was), their reunion like this was almost absurdly improbable. If they'd decided to board one of the other vessels back there . . .

Torako shook her head. Best not to think about those ships, and especially not about the people on them that they'd abandoned to the Cylons. She knew that there was nothing that could have been done; if they'd stayed to try to rescue more people, they'd just have been killed too. They'd made the right choice by running. But that didn't make it any easier to live with. _Oh gods, we left them all to die._

She looked around her desk, for anything that might distract her thoughts from those doomed ships, and her eyes settled on the picture below her lamp. It had been taken on the day her sister had shipped out with the _Sea Slug._ Tomo had actually looked smart for once, in her fresh dress blues. When their parents had taken the picture Torako had put her arm around her twin sister and smiled with genuine pride. Though she couldn't fathom who in their right mind had made the decision that Tomo was fit to serve on a Battlestar, much less as a Viper jock, she'd been immensely proud of her.

_Tomo served on a Battlestar._ Her mind flashed back to that ship floating dead in space, with its crew floating in the vacuum. She'd seen pilots there, in the hangar bay. Before she could stop herself Torako imagined her sister there, floating lifeless in the silence, staring at nothing with milky, unblinking eyes. The cigarette fell from her lips to roll down her thigh and land on the bare metal floor as Torako fell forward onto her desk, as for the first time since the attack she let herself grieve.

--

Kagura hung up her dress grays and closed her locker. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said as she started to put on her green fatigue shirt.

Tomo looked up at her from where she sat tying her boots. "Don't give me that. I'm not _that_ stupid. You and Yomi and the XO are planning something."

Kagura just looked at her as she buttoned her shirt.

Tomo stood. "Come on CAG, I'm not going to narc on you guys. I may be a dumbass but I'm not a backstabber."

She sighed. "We're not planning anything. Just . . . talking."

Tomo stepped closer and lowered her voice. "About mutiny."

Kagura glanced over her shoulder at the pilots changing at the other end of the duty locker before sitting down in her rack. "If it comes to that. But we're hoping it doesn't."

Tomo sat beside her. "I want in."

Kagura couldn't help but look at her in surprise. "You do? But you always . . . I thought you idolized the Commander, or something."

Tomo laughed. "No, I just like her style. And I hate the thought of turning on her. But not as much as I hate the thought of her getting me or Yomi killed."

Kagura nodded as she digested that. She felt strangely relieved now that she knew which side Tomo had chosen. As much as she pissed her off Kagura had to admit this idiot was probably her best friend on the ship, and she didn't like the idea of their being on separate sides when loyalties were divided.

"And besides," Tomo added, "I don't like it when my fellow pilots die any more than you do. Even if they do hate my guts."

"Oh, they don't hate your guts," Kagura said, then paused. "Well okay, most of them do."

Tomo glared at her. "You really don't mince words, do you?"

She shrugged and smiled, "Hey, I didn't get to be CAG by holding back, you know."

Tomo stood up and crossed her arms. "Hmmph, they're just jealous of my piloting skills anyway."

Kagura spluttered, then wrapped her arms around her stomach as she fell onto her side laughing.

"What's so funny?" Tomo asked.

"Jealous?" Kagura asked when she could breathe again. "Of _you?_"

"Ahh screw you," Tomo said and turned to leave. "I'm gonna go find Yomi."

Kagura waved weakly from where she lay in her rack.

"I swear CAG," Handlebarz said as she opened her locker, "you are _way_ too easily amused."

--

Colonel Kurosawa looked up from her clipboard. "What?"

Commander Tanizaki was glaring at her across the plotting table. "What are you up to?"

"What are you talking about?" Kurosawa asked. _I am going to wring Takino's neck if I find out she squealed,_ she thought.

Yukari leaned across the table. "_You're up to something,_" she accused. "What is it? Mutiny? Planning to take my ship from me, are you?"

Kurosawa shook her head and looked back at the clipboard. "I don't know where you get your delusions, Yukari."

Yukari held out two fingers like a pistol barrel and pointed them at her temple. Then she brought her thumb back, snapped it back down, and made a gunshot sound under her breath.

Kurosawa looked at her in genuine shock. "Are you threatening to have me _shot?_" she asked.

"Of course not." Yukari straightened. "You're my best friend, after all. Unlike some people here I still know how important that is. I just want to make sure you know the penalty for mutiny."

"Um, Commander, if we really are the last surviving humans in Colonial space, are you sure it's _wise_ to execute people?" Kurosawa asked.

"So you're volunteering to become breeding stock?" Yukari raised an eyebrow. "Has it really been that long for you?"

She stepped back from the table and made a disgusted face. "Of _course_ not!"

Yukari shrugged and scratched an itch in her ear. "Don't look at me, _you're_ the one who wants to save the human race."

"And you don't?"

Yukari shrugged again. "I'd just rather do it in our homes, not out there in the black."

Kurosawa opened her mouth to protest, but thought better of it. She didn't feel like getting tossed out of CIC two days in a row. Instead she just shook her head to herself and concentrated on the DRADIS screen above the table.

--

"Thanks again for volunteering to watch the helm Jumbo," Asagi said to the man (over)filling Torako's chair.

"You can call me Takashi," he said a little too quickly, as he got acquainted with the console's layout instruments. "I just figured I may as well pull my weight around here."

Down in the avionics bay Koiwai rolled his eyes. _Yeah, I'm real sure _that's_ the reason,_ he thought. His hyperthyroid friend's infatuation with the _Delicate_'s captain was as obvious as it was doomed to failure. Of course, circumstances had changed now, he had to admit.

"Have you ever flown one of these before?" Asagi asked.

Jumbo shook his head. "No, just light transports and puddle-jumpers. This doesn't look too difficult though."

Asagi nodded and got up. "Well, I'm gonna go below for a while, let me know if anything comes up."

Jumbo nodded and put his hands on the control yoke experimentally. As soon as Asagi was gone Koiwai looked up at him. "Pulling your weight, huh?"

"Shut up."

Asagi stepped into the ship's common area and crossed the room to the galley. "How you two doing?" she asked to Ena and Miura, sitting at the dining table.

They didn't respond, just concentrated on their game of Go Fish.

Asagi leaned on the counter. "Still upset about those ships back there?" She was pretty sure that was why Fuuka had been avoiding her too. "That wasn't an easy choice to make." In actuality though it _had_ been pretty easy; it only became hard afterward, when the full reality of what they'd done had a chance to sink in. "But if we'd stayed behind we'd have just died too."

"So that makes it right?" Ena asked without looking at her.

Asagi sighed. For such a mature kid her youngest sister could be so idealistic sometimes. "Yes actually, it does. As far as we know we're the last humans left alive. So staying behind to die just so we won't feel bad about surviving later on is the _wrong choice._"

When they just ignored her Asagi shook her head took her coffee up to the forward hallway. She stopped at her hatch and was about to push it back into the wall when she paused and looked across the hall at her pilot's quarters. After thinking for a moment she crossed and pushed open the hatch to Torako's quarters.

"Hey Torako?" she called as she started down the ladder. She wasn't surprised when no answer came; she'd been down here for over an hour, so chances were good she was asleep. And sure enough, Torako was on her bunk, facing the wall.

Asagi got to the bottom of the ladder and looked around at her pilot's sparse room. Aside from a couple bookshelves bolted to the wall and a Tauron flag hanging above her bunk, there wasn't much here in the way of decoration. As she went to the desk Asagi wondered why she'd come down here. Was it simply to get away from the accusing stares of her siblings? She knew that if anyone could sympathize with her decision to leave those ships it would be her rational-minded pilot. Hell, she hadn't even given the order to leave them; Torako had taken them out on her own.

Asagi reached down and picked up a half-solved puzzle cube off the desk. She turned it over in her hand and couldn't help but smile. Torako had been working on this thing off and on for the last year. She looked back down at the desk and saw something else. Putting the cube down, she reached over and picked up the picture of Torako with her sister. _Gods, what a lunatic she was_, Asagi thought. _And people called _me_ childish . . ._

She heard movement behind her and turned. Torako had rolled onto her back, and was looking up at her with red, puffy eyes. _So that cool exterior finally cracked,_ Asagi thought. "How you doing?" she asked.

Torako looked from her to the picture in her hand, then back at her. "I've been better," she finally said.

Asagi nodded and sat down on the edge of the bunk. She knew all of this was hard on her, and could only imagine how much more keenly Torako felt the loss of her family after seeing Asagi reunited with part of hers. "Do you . . . want to talk about it?" _Gods_ she sucked at comforting people.

Torako sat up and shook her head as she hugged her knees to her chest. Asagi nodded again and looked back at the picture. _No one would ever believe those two were twins, _she thought as she looked at their faces. She saw a hand out of the corner of her eye, and turned her head to see Torako reaching for the picture. She handed it over and sipped her coffee as Torako stared at her sister's smiling face.

--

"How much longer to the Abraxas belt?" Boone asked, leaning into the cockpit cabin through the hatch.

Jumbo checked a screen. "ETA is three hours." He sat back. "We'd be there already if that FTL was running."

Boone glanced behind him. "I think our new captain's got Fuuka back there helping out, but I don't think she knows a single thing about jump drives."

"Neither does this ship's mechanic, apparently," Jumbo said. "Hell, _I_ could probably do a better job fixing it than those two." He looked toward the avionics bay as though expecting a wisecrack from Koiwai, but he'd apparently fallen asleep, laying on the metal grating with his daughter resting her head on his stomach.

"So why don't you?" Boone asked.

"Watchin' the helm," Jumbo said. "Why don't _you?_"

"I tried. Apparently I was so incompetent they locked me out of the engine room."

--

"This is Raptor 1138, beginning recon patrol."

"Roger that Raptor 1138," Lieutenant Ohyama's voice came back over the wireless. "Good hunting out there, Stammer."

Kaori Aida switched off her comm and sighed as she angled her Raptor out into the asteroid field. "Why do we always get sent out on recon?" she asked back at her ECO.

Chihiro kept her eyes on her console. "We don't get sent out any more than anyone else," she said. "I'm more concerned with why we're still in this asteroid belt." Since the disastrous failure of Operation Sucker-Punch, Commander Tanizaki had sure enough ordered the ship to jump to a new position . . . elsewhere within the Abraxas asteroid belt. As Kurosawa had put it when she told them they'd only jumped a few million miles, it was like trying to hide from someone sitting next to them by leaning an inch to the left.

"I almost think the Commander's _trying_ to get attacked," Kaori said.

"I _hope_ she's not that gung-ho," Chihiro said as she adjusted the DRADIS. At least there wasn't as much debris, so she could get a better idea of what was out there. Of course, that meant any Cylons who were out there could too. "Anyway, I'd rather not talk about the Commander," she said. "We hear enough of that in the rec room."

Kaori nodded. "Yeah, let's just concentrate on this recon."

--

Shimauu clamped the leads and looked over at her friend. "Okay, how's that?"

Fuuka looked at the diagnostic screen in her lap. She had next to no idea what she was supposed to be getting out of this. "It looks like the firefly drive's still got power, but the FTL's still dead."

Shimauu nodded and grabbed another lead. "Okay, then this _should_ do the trick . . ." She hesitated before clamping it onto a bare wire sticking out of the drive's side. Then she yelped and fell back as there was a loud popping sound and she was showered with sparks.

Fuuka hurriedly put the screen aside and ran to her friend. "Whoa, are you all right?!"

She was picking herself up and laughing. "Woo, never had _that_ happen before! Yeah, I'm fine." She looked at the jump drive, which at this point looked more like a hunk of scrap that they'd simply soldered, bolted, and taped other bits of junk to. They were fairly certain it violated at least half a dozen safety codes by now, but the important question was whether it worked or not. "How's it look on the screen?"

Fuuka went back to the diagnostic where it lay on the floor. "It's green," she said. She looked up to see Shimauu on her feet, making little pumping motions with her fists and shaking her ass.

"I'm symbolizing my struggle against overwhelming odds," she said as she kicked her leg up and spun, accidentally whacking it on an access ladder. "_OWW!_"

--

"Captain, are you down there?"

Asagi and Torako looked up at the speaker next to the ladder leading up to the hallway above. After setting her cup down on the floor, Asagi got up and crossed the room to the intercom. "Yeah, what is it?"

"I think I've got the FTL running," Shimauu said.

When Asagi reached the hallway Shimauu and Fuuka were there. "What were ya doin' down in Torako's room?" Shimauu asked with an impish smile.

"None of your business. So you've got the FTL working?"

She nodded. "I think so, but we'd have to try a jump to know for sure."

Asagi turned to her pilot as she came up the ladder. "How about it, you ready to try a jump?"

"I haven't jumped a ship in over a year," Torako said.

"Don't worry, I have faith in you." Asagi put a hand on her shoulder.

Shimauu giggled. "I _knew_ it."

"What are you _talking_ about?" Asagi asked.

"That's what I'd like to know," Fuuka said.

Shimauu just shrugged and headed up to the helm.

"Shouldn't you be in the engine room in case something goes wrong?" Asagi asked.

Torako whacked the back of her chair with her hand. "Hey, big guy. Outta my chair." She and Jumbo had never really gotten along, ever since they'd first met and he'd yelled at her when she wouldn't tell him if Asagi was single or not.

Shimauu shook her head. "No way, I don't wanna be in there if that thing blows up or something."

Everyone in the cabin who was still awake turned and looked at her.

"I've never fixed a jump drive before, okay?" she said defensively.

"Well _that_ fills me with confidence," Torako muttered as she settled into her seat.

As Torako dug the coordinates for the Abraxas belt out of the navigation computer and spooled up the jump drive Asagi reached up for the ship's comm. "This is the captain. We're about to try an FTL jump, so you all might want to get up here."

In the avionics bay Koiwai sat up. "We got the drive fixed, huh?"

"We hope, anyway," Torako said, then turned to see Boone enter through the hatch, followed by Ena and Miura. Osaka was still asleep in the chair behind Asagi's. "My board is green, everybody ready?"

"Whenever you are," Asagi said.

Torako nodded, took a deep breath, and pressed the button. A flash of white swung across the window outside, and _Something Delicate _punched a hole through the fabric of space itself.

* * *

**-Author Notes-**

God dang, this one's rather long. I hope you frakwads like it, because I'm not sure I do. (To write, it was a bitch.) Things will be picking up soon though. Oh yes. They will be picking up quite nicely.

Maniacal laughter.


	10. Reunion

Torako opened one eye, then the other. She looked across the cabin and say Asagi doing the same. "Well we're still alive, at least," she said.

"Congratulations Shimauu," Asagi said, "you didn't kill us all. Now let's see where we are . . ." She checked a screen on her console and made a joyful whoop. "We're in the middle of the Abraxas asteroid belt!"

"Where are all the asteroids?" Fuuka asked.

"Most asteroid belts aren't actually all that dense," Jumbo explained. "A lot of times the rocks are thousands or even millions of miles apart." He pointed at an asteroid in the distance. "Oh look, there's one."

Torako nodded and checked her DRADIS. "We must be in one of the sparse areas. I'll try to find us a patch with more cover."

Shimauu turned and headed out the hatch. "I suppose I'd better make sure we still have an engine."

--

Kaori leaned back in her seat and sighed. _Frak_ these recon patrols were boring. "How long now?"

"You've got a watch," Chihiro said. "Two hours, and nothing. We're only about halfway through with our assigned area, too."

Kaori pressed her hands to the sides of her helmet. "Aagh, this is so _boring!_ We should have brought some cards or something."

"You can't play cards and fly at the same . . . hey, I think I got something."

Kaori's hands returned to the controls. "What? Cylons?"

Chihiro shrugged. "Too far out to tell. But it's definitely headed this way."

Kaori nodded and switched on the comm. "_Sea Slug_ Stammer, we've picked up a possible bogey, moving to intercept."

"Roger that Stammer," Ohyama said over the wireless.

"Make sure we're spun up," Kaori said to her ECO as she angled the Raptor towards the unknown contact and accelerated.

"Way ahead of you."

"How long until we're in visual range?"

Chihiro read the numbers. "About . . . three minutes. Hey. Hey!" She waved an arm excitedly as she pointed at the DRADIS.

Kaori looked back at her. "What? I can't see your screen, genius."

Chihiro looked up at her and grinned. "I'm reading a Colonial transponder! It's one of ours!"

Kaori looked forward and switched on the comm again. "_Sea Slug_ Stammer, we're picking up a Colonial transponder. Repeat, picking up a Colonial transponder."

"Stammer, this is _Sea Slug _Actual," Yukari's voice said. "Don't just accept it! Authenticate!"

"It's authentic, sir," Chihiro said.

Yukari looked up at the DRADIS screen as the contact came within their range. She looked down at Kurosawa, who looked like she couldn't decide whether to be elated or suspicious. She knew the feeling. She lifted the wireless receiver. "Go check it out, but be careful. It may be a Cylon trick."

"Roger that, sir," Kaori's voice came over the speakers.

--

"We've got a contact," Torako said as the DRADIS beeped. She looked up at Asagi. "Colonial transponder."

"More wreckage?" Asagi asked. They were alone in the cabin again; everyone else had gone aft not long after the jump.

Torako shook her head. "Not a chance, they're coming this way, and fast. Should be within visual range in . . . two minutes. Should we try hailing them?"

Asagi shrugged and picked up her handset. "Worth a shot. Unknown vessel, this is the transport _Something Delicate_, do you copy?" When there was no answer, she tried again. "Unknown vessel, this is _Something Delicate._ Do you copy."

She was about to try a third time when the wireless speakers crackled. "_Something Delicate,_ this is Colonial Raptor 1138. You don't know how glad we are to find you guys!"

Asagi looked at Torako and grinned as a new speck appeared in front of them and quickly grew. "We could say the same thing," Asagi said as she watched the Raptor approach.

"What's your situation?" the Raptor pilot asked, and outside they saw the smaller ship flip over and take formation alongside them.

"We're refugees," Asagi said, though that much should be obvious. "Ten civilians and one Raptor pilot we found drifting. What about you?"

"We're from the _Sea Slug,_" the pilot said. "We were out on recon when we picked you up on DRADIS."

Torako scrabbled for her own handset. "Wait a minute, you're from the _Sea Slug?_ It survived the attack?"

"That's right, we'll take you there now. The Commander will want to have a word with you, especially that Raptor pilot you picked up."

Torako couldn't care less about any Commander. "Tell me, is Lieutenant Takino still alive?"

"You mean Tomo?" the pilot asked. "You know her?"

"_Is she still alive,_" Torako repeated.

"Yeah. Yeah, she's still alive."

Torako slumped forward onto her console and fought the urge to cry. When she'd regained her composure she pressed the button to talk again. "Listen, could you give her a message for me? Tell her Torako's alive."

"I'll let her know," the pilot said.

In the Raptor Chihiro looked up at Kaori. "Who the hell is Torako?"

Kaori shrugged. "I think she's her sister." She switched frequencies. "_Sea Slug_ Stammer, we have made contact with the unknown vessel. It's a civilian transport carrying ten refugees and a Raptor pilot they found drifting in space. Request permission to bring them in."

It took a moment for a response. "Roger that Stammer," Ohyama finally said. He sounded like he was trying not to jump for joy. "Bring 'em in, and good work."

"And another thing," Kaori added. "One of the crew has a message for Lieutenant Takino. She says to tell her that Torako is alive."

In CIC Lieutenant Mizuhara immediately stood up from her chair. "Sir, I request permission to deliver the message."

Yukari shrugged. "Granted." For once, Kurosawa was glad the Commander was so inconsistent in her levels of strictness. Mizuhara left CIC and was practically running down the corridor.

"What's that about?" Yukari asked.

"I think it's a member of Takino's family," Kurosawa said. She looked up at the DRADIS and the approaching contacts. _Will you change tactics now that we've got these people to worry about?_ she thought. She hoped so; she didn't want to stage a mutiny against her old friend.

"Fire control," Yukari said, "I want a firing solution on that transport as soon as it's within range. If it tries _anything_ I want it taken out."

"Yes sir."

--

Torako barely had time to lay in the course provided by their escort before Asagi yanked her out of her chair. Then she was holding her in her arms, dancing around the cabin and laughing. "She's alive, she's alive, you're sister's alive!"

Torako let her facade drop and laughed along with her.

--

"Tomo!"

Every head in pilots' rec room turned to see Koyomi standing breathlessly in the hatch. "Is Tomo in here?"

"Yo, mi!" Tomo called across the room and waved. She was playing some sort of game involving small carcboard discs with Kagura and Handlebarz. "What's up?" she asked as Koyomi hurried to her table.

She leaned over the table. "Torako's alive."

"That is really not funny," Tomo said, and meant it.

Koyomi shook her head. "Good, 'cause it's not joke. Stammer just found a civilian transport with ten refugees on board, and she's one of them."

Somehow Tomo managed to knock over not only her chair but two glasses as she got to her feet. "What? Really?"

Koyomi grinned and nodded.

Tomo grinned even wider and looked down at Kagura and Handlebarz. "She's alive! SHE'S ALIVE!!" She practically shoved Koyomi out of the way as she went tearing out of the rec room. A moment later she reappeared through the hatch. "Where is she?!"

Koyomi went after her. "Stammer's bringing them in now. They should be here in the next half hour or so."

Tomo grinned again, hugged her, and turned to run. Then she turned back again, kissed her, and _then_ ran. Koyomi could hear her laughing and shouting as she went.

Tomo ran for the port flight pod. That was the one Stammer's Raptor was assigned to, so that would be where she'd take them. She was just stepping onto the catwalk above the hangar deck when she stopped. Torako flew that crappy old Firefly, didn't she? Those junk heaps were too wide to fit into a Battlestar's flight pod, so they'd be docking outside. She slid down the ladder to the deck and ran across to the hatch leading up to the airlocks.

--

"This better not turn out like the last time I ran across a Battlestar," Boone said skeptically as they watch the _Sea Slug_ slowly expand to fill the _Delicate_'s front window.

"If it does I'm going to kick my sister's _ass,_" Torako said.

"Guess we don't have to worry about the Cylons so much anymore," Jumbo said.

"Yeah, because they'd _never_ go after a military threat like a Battlestar," Miura muttered.

"Hey boy," Jumbo said, "those things can take _nukes,_ okay? They're tough."

"I told you I am not a boy!" Miura snapped.

"Coulda fooled me!"

"Oh _shut up!_" Koiwai rolled his eyes. "You two sound like an old married couple."

"Which is creepy," Asagi said.

Torako hung her head. It had been so quiet before they brought all these people on . . .

"Anyway," Asagi said, "this isn't the time to be bickering, so kindly knock it off."

"Yes Captain," Jumbo said immediately, and Miura smirked.

"_Something Delicate,_ said a voice of the wireless, "you are cleared for docking at airlock three. It's a pleasure to have you with us."

"Roger that," Asagi said into her handset. "It's a pleasure to be here." As Torako began the docking procedure she stood up. I suppose I'd better have a word with their Commander, see where we go from here. The rest of you I want to stay on the ship for now."

"I'm going too," Torako said as she tapped the RCS thrusters to line them up with the _Slug_'s docking collar.

Asagi nodded. "Well yeah, of course." She turned to Osaka. "And you'll want to report to the Commander too, I take it."

Osaka got up from her seat and nodded.

"Everyone else stays put," Asagi repeated, then moved through them to the hatch leading out of the cabin, followed by Osaka.

"How come we have to stay here?" Fuuka asked. Shimauu shrugged.

"In case these guys turn out like the _Pegasus,_" Torako said as she finished docking and stood up to leave. Before she went she reached over and picked up a wireless handset to clip to her belt. "Probably nothing will happen, but if I give the word, I want you guys to jump out of here. Don't even undock, just jump out."

"What about you guys?" Koiwai asked.

She shrugged as she went out the hatch.

--

When they stepped through the airlock onto the _Sea Slug,_ they were greeted by four Marines. "Welcome aboard the _Sea Slug,_" the one in charge stepped forward and said. "We have orders to take you directly to the Commander."

Asagi nodded and gestured for them to get moving. "Lead the way, boys."

"Torako!" Two of the Marines were shoved rudely out of the way as a wildly grinning Viper pilot crashed through.

"Tomo!" Torako cried as her sister tackled her and they fell to the floor. They both already had tears in their eyes by the time they got to their feet.

"I thought I'd never see you again!" Tomo sobbed. She wrapped her arms around her sister and cried into her shirt. "I missed you so much . . ."

Torako hugged her as she shed tears of her own. "I missed you too."

The Marines watched them awkwardly, and finally Asagi cleared her throat. "Um, I hate to interrupt, but we need to get moving."

The sister nodded and wiped their eyes. "Yeah, right. Sorry," Torako said, and they followed along as the Marines led the way to CIC.

"So what happened to you guys?" Tomo asked. "I wanna hear everything!"

"Oh, it's a long and mostly boring story," Torako said. "We did evade some missiles, though."

"Ooh, cool! _I_ was in two battles." She slapped at her chest proudly. "You're looking at a real live flying ace!"

"Wow, I'm impressed!" Asagi said over her shoulder. "Torako here can barely line up two airlocks."

"Hey," Torako said.

"Yeah," Tomo agreed, "she's got no chops at all for flying."

"Hey come on!"

"It's okay, we love you anyway," Tomo said and reached up to pat her on the shoulder.

"Yeah, even if you are a terrible pilot," Asagi added.

"Always gangin' up on me . . ." Torako muttered.

--

When they reached CIC the Marines stood to attention and saluted. Commander Tanizaki saluted them lazily. "Good work Sergeant, you're dismissed." As the Marines left she stepped around the plotting table to their new guests. "Well, I must say this is a pleasant surprise."

Torako looked around CIC. Koyomi caught her eye and waved, and she waved back. She was glad to see she was still kicking too; she'd always liked Yomi.

Osaka stepped forward and saluted. "Sir, Lieutenant Ayumu Kasuga reporting for duty."

Yukari looked her over. "Ah, good. We could always use more pilots. What Battlestar were you on?"

"The _Triton,_ sir."

She nodded. "Well, your first assignment is a full report on what happened to it. I want you to tell me everything you know."

Osaka nodded. "Yes sir." Then she drew her sidearm, and before anyone could react she shot Commander Tanizaki between the eyes.


	11. Trial by Fire

Yukari's head snapped back as the back of her skull was blown out, showering anyone and anything behind her with a fine spray of blood and brain. Kurosawa stepped back and watched in stunned horror as she stood for a second, then fell lifelessly to the deck. Mihama screamed, and Ohyama jumped to his feet.

"Osaka, what the _frak!_" Asagi shouted as she jumped back away from the Raptor pilot.

Tomo stepped back and drew her own pistol. "Torako get away!"

Before she could move Torako felt a skinny arm snake around her throat and she was bent over backwards as Osaka pulled her in close. "Ah ah ah," Osaka said, tapping the pistol barrel against her temple. "Don't wanna shoot your precious sister now, do ya?" She pointed the gun at Colonel Kurosawa as the DRADIS beeped.

Finally the XO was able to pull her eyes from the dead body of her friend to the gun pointed at her face. Her mouth opened and closed, but she couldn't make any words came out. She only blinked when splattered blood ran into her eye.

"DRADIS contact!" Mizuhara said. She was staring in horror at her console. "Three Cylon Basestars!"

Osaka smiled and turned the pistol to point at the Tactical Officer before she could sound action stations. "We're all gonna sit tight here," she said.

Torako gasped for air and clawed at the arm around her throat. It was like trying to bend a steel beam. When the hell did this lightweight get so strong? Still, she hadn't gotten any heavier . . . She looked at Tomo, at her wide-eyed face, at the pistol quivering in her hands. _Get ready,_ she mouthed. Tomo looked confused; she obviously couldn't read lips worth a damn.

"Oh my gods . . ." Koyomi said, "They're launching Raiders!"

Finally Kurosawa found her voice. "Why would you do this?" she asked in disbelief. "How could you betray your own people like this?"

Osaka giggled and turned the gun back to her. "I'm not betrayin' anybody."

Before she could continue Torako shifted her legs and threw herself backwards, slamming Osaka into the edge of the plotting table. "Tomo do it!" Torako shouted as she squirmed free and dove away from the crazed Raptor pilot. Osaka swung her pistol around, but Tomo fired first. Osaka yelped and fell back against the table, splattering blood across its underlit surface before falling limply to the floor.

"ACTION STATIONS!" Kurosawa shouted at Mizuhara before the pilot had even hit the floor. "I want Vipers in the tubes! Launch all the Raptors, everything that can fly and shoot. We need to move, _now!_" All across the ship alarms sounded as Mizuhara frantically gave the announcement over the PA.

Kurosawa turned to Torako as Tomo was helping her to her feet. "You're a pilot?"

Torako nodded. "Yeah, I am."

She turned to Tomo. "Get her a flightsuit and put her in a bird."

Tomo nodded. "Yes sir! Come on, Torako."

"But I've never flown a Viper before!" Torako said desperately, looking to Tomo and Asagi for support. "I wouldn't last thirty seconds!" Asagi stared at her helplessly. She clearly wanted to speak up, but she knew she had no authority here.

"We need every bird in the air we can get, and we've got more of them than pilots," Kurosawa said and then turned away from her. "Fire control, get me a solution on the nearest Baseship. Why the _hell_ aren't we moving yet?!"

Tomo grabbed Torako's arm. "Come on nugget, move your _ass!_" As she was dragged out of CIC Torako heard the XO telling Asagi to get her people off the _Delicate_ and into the _Slug'_s sickbay. Then she was running, following her sister down the corridor.

--

Atmosphere sprayed from the _Slug'_s flightpods as she launched every Viper that could fly, and a steady stream of Raptors flowed from the launch bays. A ribbon of fire appeared connecting the Battlestar with the nearest Cylon ship as she opened fire with her main guns, and the space surrounding the ship was filled with the explosions of intercepted missiles as the point-defense batteries went to work.

In her cockpit Captain Kagura looked around her at the other Vipers and swore under her breath. _Where the _hell_ is Numbnuts?_ Though common sense told her she'd probably be better off without Takino flying her number two, she felt naked flying without her.

She shook her head. _Worry about her later Mai, right now we've got other problems. _"Okay people, look sharp!" she said over the wireless. "Bonehead, take Red Squadron and hit 'em on the left, Noodles, you take Green to the right. The rest of you are on me, straight in. Raptors, see if you can't soften 'em up for us a bit."

She watched as the Raptors launched their missiles into the approaching swarm of Raiders. The clawed little ships broke ranks and scrambled to evade, but the missiles' homing systems found their marks. "Hoo-wah!" Kagura laughed. "All Vipers, weapons free, and engage!" She rolled her Viper to avoid a Raider's fire and opened up with her own guns, shearing the enemy fighter in half. Tomo was right, seeing all that blood and guts when they came apart was immensely satisfying.

--

The _Sea Slug'_s main thrusters flared as she accelerated towards the nearest Basestar.

Mizuhara grabbed the side of her console as another missile impact rocked the ship. "They're moving to circle us in," she said.

Kurosawa nodded. "Bring us around the outside before they can close us in. If they want to box us, they'll have to work for it. Why did they only send three again?" She looked down at Yukari, lying with her head in a pool of blood. _Because they didn't expect us to put up a fight,_ she thought. She turned to Osaka, and saw her starting to move. Her head turned, and Kurosawa saw the side of her skull through torn skin. A graze. "Marines!" She turned to the Marines who had come running when action stations were sounded. "Get this traitor to the brig."

_I'm not betrayin' anybody. _What had she meant by that? She'd have time to worry about that if they survived this.

The ship shuddered again, and more areas flared red on a disaster control screen. "We've lost FTL!" Ensign Wada said.

"Frak, get it back online!" _Frak me, _Kurosawa thought, _the last thing we need is to be stuck here._

--

Tomo guaged Torako's height with her hand and went to a locker. "I don't think Bonehead will mind you borrowing his extra suit," she said as she pulled the flightsuit out.

Torako was untying her shoes. "Tomo, this is suicide, I don't know how to fly a Viper."

Tomo tossed her the flightsuit and looked around for a helmet. "Nonsense, you used that simulator when you visited me at flight school, remember?"

"Yeah, once, and I sucked," Torako said as she zipped up.

Tomo found one and waited for her to finish buckling the suit's outer layer before pushing it into her hands. "Relax, just stay on my wing and you'll be fine. I won't let anything happen to you." She slapped her on the arm. "Now let's get out there and kick some ass!"

_This is absurd,_ Torako thought as she followed her sister to the launch tubes. _Since when did Tomo become the more capable one?_

--

Asagi steadied herself against a bulkhead as the ship rocked again. The lights flickered and died, then came back on a moment later.

"Come on, this way," the Marine Sergeant said, gesturing for her to keep moving.

"What about the people on my ship?" she asked. They'd told her what was going on, but she wanted to be double sure.

"They're on their way, don't worry. We've got some Marines escorting them."

Asagi nodded and tried to ignore the smoke and alarms. She was starting to regret coming aboard. Better in here than out there, though. _Torako's going to be out there._

"The sickbay's the safest part of the ship, it's designed to serve as a disaster area in just this kind of situation," the Sergeant was saying, but Asagi wasn't particularly interested.

"How much farther?" she asked.

"We're almost there."

--

Kagura felt her Viper shudder around her as she fired, splashing another Raider. She heard a scream over the wireless, and she saw another blue contact vanish from her DRADIS. "Frak, come on guys, keep it together!"

"There's too many of them!" Handlebarz said frantically. She screamed then, and cut off in a burst of static as Kagura saw her Viper fly apart in a cloud of flames and twisted metal.

"Rachel! Gods _dammit!_"

"Bug, break hard right, now now _now!_" she heard Static say.

"I can't shake 'im!" Bug sounded close to panicking.

Kagura swooped to the side and fired, taking out two Raiders with the same burst. She looked around. Frak, where was Bug in all this, anyway? It stopped being an issue when she heard her scream and another friendly contact vanished from her DRADIS.

_Gods DAMMIT where is Numbnuts?!_

--

Torako stared at the controls around her. These were absolutely nothing like anything she was used to. Still, she knew enough about flying to know what everything did. She exhaled and nodded firmly to herself. "Okay Torako, you can do this." She realized she hadn't had a cigarette in almost eight hours.

"Viper 798, you are cleared for launch."

She turned and looked at the officer in the launch tube's control room. She must have looked as terrified as she felt, because the man smiled at her. "Give 'em hell kid," he said, and then she felt herself pressed back into the seat as she accelerated down the launch tube. No gravity drive on these things to compensate for G forces. Then she was outside, with Tomo flying formation beside her.

"Okay Smokestack, follow me, this way to the party!" Tomo's Viper angled off towards a writhing knot of Vipers, Raptors, and Raiders.

"Wait, my callsign is Smokestack? Don't I get a say in this?" She turned and followed her sister, taking the opportunity to get familiar with the controls. The first thing she learned was that they were a _lot_ more responsive than the _Delicate'_s.

"Nope!" Tomo said. "Sorry I'm late guys!"

A voice Torako didn't recognize came over the wireless. "Numbnuts, what the hell took you so long?! And who's that with you?"

"Shiisa, meet my sister, Smokestack!" Tomo said proudly.

"Your sister's not a Viper pilot!" Shiisa said incredulously.

"That's what I said," Torako said.

"Anyway, help me watch her ass so she doesn't get blown out of the sky," Tomo said as they neared the fight.

"So _you're_ giving _me_ orders now?" Shiisa asked. "Great, now I gotta babysit a frakkin' nugget! We don't have time for this, we're losing pilots left and right out here!"

"Guess it's up to me to save the day again," Tomo said as she and Torako reached the action and she turned her bird straight for a pair of Raiders. "Come on Smokestack, ace in a day!"


	12. Ace in a Day

Asagi breathed a sigh of relief when the hatch slid open and Koiwai arrived in the sickbay, carrying Yotsuba and followed by Fuuka, Shimauu, and the others. "Is everybody okay?" she asked as she went to meet them.

Koiwai nodded and coughed. "Yeah, I think so." He looked back at the two Marines standing guard by the closed hatch as he put his daughter down. "Stay close to me, Yotsuba."

"What's going on?" she asked. "Is it another attack?"

He nodded. "Yeah, but we'll be safe here, so don't worry." As if specifically to undermine him, the ship shook again.

Yotsuba laughed. "Wahahaha! It's like an earthquake!"

A tall young woman approached them out of the pandemonium. She looked like she was trying very hard not to break down in hysterics. "Excuse me," she said, "but we're probably going to have a lot of injured coming in soon, so if you'll follow me I'll find you a spot out of the way."

As they followed her she turned to look at them. "Where did you come from?" she asked.

"Tauron," Asagi said. "We've been on the run since the attack, and happened to meet up with one of your Raptors."

"That's a miracle," the woman said. "I'm so glad someone else survived this."

"Don't get too ahead of yourself there," Boone said.

"Hey Asagi," Shimauu said, looking around. "Where's Torako?"

--

"Whoa, watch it, dumbass!" Shiisa shouted as Torako's line of fire came dangerously close to hitting her Viper.

"Sorry!" _Torako you idiot!_

"Shoot the Raiders, not the Vipers," Numbnuts said helpfully.

"Right, got it." Torako swore under her breath. Trying to fly this thing was like trying to break in a wild bull. A wild bull on methamphetamines. So far she'd nearly rammed both her sister and the CAG, and now she was coming close to shooting them down, too. At least she'd managed to bag two Raiders in the process.

"One advantage," Shiisa said as she ran down another Cylon fighter, "your flying's so all over the map they'll never be able to guess your next move."

Torako was about to respond when she saw twin lines of blue-white appear to her left. She flipped over, saw the Raider bearing down on her, and opened fire. _Make that three._ She smirked to herself. _Only two more to go, I may make ace yet._

"What the hell are those?!" Numbnuts nearly shouted. Not far off they saw three strange vessels shaped like giant sleds with Cylon faces built into the front. They were ignoring the battle and heading straight for the _Sea Slug._

"Frak, it's a boarding party." Shiisa veered towards them. "_Sea Slug_ Shiisa, you've got a Cylon boarding party inbound, headed for your port flight pod. Moving to intercept."

They gave chase, and almost immediately one of the ugly ships flipped around and opened fire on them. "Gods _dammit!_" Numbnuts yelled as bullets tore through her plane.

"Tomo, are you all right?" Torako shouted.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just a little perforated."

Below them Shiisa had swung down and around, harassing the ship with her guns and drawing its fire away. "It's wide open you idiots, take it out!"

The rearmost ship shook as Tomo and Torako opened fire. It tried to bring its guns to bear on them, but exploded apart before it had a chance to shoot. "That one's mine!" Tomo immediately announced.

"What?! No way, it's mine!" Torako argued.

"Screw you Smokestack, that one is clearly mine!"

"Both of you shut up or I'll knock your heads together!" Shiisa snapped. "We've got two left, make it zero!"

--

"It'll be okay," Fuuka was saying. "You heard Jumbo, these things can take hits from nukes." The ship shook again and the lights flickered, only making Ena cry harder. Fuuka and Miura looked at each other and sighed. They were getting nowhere.

Standing beside her Yotsuba smacked Ena on the head. "It's okay, Ena! Asagi said Tora's out there fighting the enemy!"

Ena looked up at her. "What good will that do?"

Yotsuba looked at her blankly, then glared. "Tora's cool!" She shook her fist and walked away. Now Ena was confused _and_ scared.

Asagi's constant pacing didn't help things. "She'll be okay, right? She's a pilot! A good pilot. But she's never flown a Viper before . . ."

"Didn't you say she'd have her sister looking out for her?" Koiwai asked from where he stood leaning against a bulkhead. He acted unconcerned, but he still flinched with every missile strike.

She shook her head uncertainly. "You've never met her sister. She's an idiot and a lunatic."

"Don't worry, I'm sure she'll be fine," Jumbo said. He looked like he was trying and failing to work up the nerve to put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Koiwai was looking around wondering where his daughter had run off to now when he felt someone take his hand. He looked down and saw Fuuka standing beside him, staring at the floor ahead of her. He sighed and put an arm awkwardly around her shoulders, and she leaned into him. _Okay,_ he thought, _this feels a little weird . . ._ Still, it seemed to comfort her.

--

Sakaki heard light footsteps behind her, and turned to see that little refugee girl with the inexplicable green hair walking towards her with a grin on her face.

"Hi there," she said, crouching down and smiling. "What's your name?"

"Yotsuba!"

"Hello Yotsuba, I'm Yuri. Where's your father?"

Yotsuba pointed. "Daddy's back there," she said.

"Are you sure you should be running off alone?"

She just shrugged.

Sakaki straightened. "Let's go find him, okay?" As they headed back to where she'd led the refugees she looked down at the little girl. She looked like she was too busy being curious to be frightened. She wished she could do that. "So where are you from?" she asked. She already knew, but a little conversation helped ease the stress.

"Tauron," Yotsuba said. "And before that I lived on a planet to the left."

" . . . To the left?"

She pointed. "Way, way, waaaaaaaaay left."

Sakaki nodded. "I . . . see." She supposed expecting her to make sense at her age was stretching it a bit. The ship shuddered again, and Yotsuba laughed.

--

The _Sea Slug_ swung around the Basestar in an arc, hurling punishment at the spoked ship with her main guns. The Cylon vessel was still launching missiles as it began to come apart, before finally breaking up in an expanding ball of fire.

In CIC Koyomi whooped and looked up from her console. "Scratch one Basestar, sir."

"But the other two are coming in fast," Kurosawa said. She turned to Ensign Wada. "FTL?"

Wada shook her head. Her scalp was bleeding where she'd whacked it against her console. "Negative sir, they're still working on it."

"Sir, we're losing birds fast out there," Ohyama said. He looked devastated; he'd heard Handlebarz scream on the wireless and then go silent.

Kurosawa leaned against the plotting table. She looked down at Yukari's legs poking out from around the corner of the table. _I could really use your knack for bringing a victory out of sheer stupidity right now, Yukari._ She closed her eyes. "Okay. Bringing us closer to the nearest Basestar, right up their noses. We hit 'em, and keep hitting until they're down. See if we can't find a way out of this in the meantime."

"Sir," Ohyama said then, "Shiisa reports that they've taken out two of the three boarding vessels."

"What about the third?" Kurosawa asked. This wasn't exactly an "A for effort" situation.

"They're still working on it, sir."

--

The knot of seething fighters moved with the _Sea Slug,_ as she tangled with the Basestars, the Raiders tried to make attack runs on her, and the Vipers and Raptors tangled with the Raiders. Missiles curved through the vacuum, sometimes veering off as the Raptors' countermeasures scrambled their homing frequencies and sometimes finding their mark, sending another pilot into oblivion.

"Oh no you don't!" Kagura said angrily as she chased the last boarding vessel. This one had proved a lot more slippery than the other two.

"Shiisa, you're getting into the _Slug_'s engagement zone!" Numbnuts warned as she and Smokestack veered off their approach.

"No way this frakker's getting away from me," Kagura snarled as flak bursts rocked her ship. "Your ass is mine, you ugly son of a bitch."

"Shiisa don't be an idiot!" Smokestack said. "Get out of there!"

"Go work on making ace, I got this!" She locked her eyes onto the ship's six main thrusters, forcing herself to ignore the cloud of destruction surrounding her. _You're not boarding my ship, you hideous toaster piece of shit._ Just gotta get through this flak; she was too busy concentrating on not getting shot down to open fire.

Then as though emerging from a cloudbank they were through the flak and headed straight for the port flight pod. She opened fire, spraying red lines of tracers across the ship's hull. It flipped over and responded in kind, but she wasn't backing down. "Come on!" she shouted as she went in for the kill. Her Viper's right wing sheared off just as the boarding vessel finally lost control and collided with the edge of the flight pod's aperture.

Kagura's celebratory whoops were cut short when she saw the flight deck speeding towards her. She swore and frantically yanked her bird's nose up and fired the ventral RCS thrusters as she tried to cut all forward thrust. Then she was pitched forward in her seat as the Viper slammed hard into the deck, skidding and spinning before coming to a stop against the wall.

She cautiously opened her eyes and looked around before she began laughing. "_Sea Slug_ Shiisa," she said over the wireless, "boarding party has been taken out. Along with my bird," she added.

Ohyama's voice came over the wireless. "Roger that Shiisa. Are you all right?"

Kagura nodded, though there was no one around to see her. "Yeah, but I'm a bit stuck at the moment. I've crashed on the upper flight deck of the port flight pod."

"Sit tight, we'll send a land ram out for you."

"Copy that," Kagura said. She threw her head back and started to laugh again before she heard Smokestack scream her sister's name over the wireless.

--

They'd barely pulled off from their approach when the Raiders pounced on them. Torako's Viper shook violently as bullets punched through her wing, and she frantically brought her ship around to face her attackers. She opened fire, and the Raider tried to pull away before it spiralled out of control, trailing blood from a dozen holes in its fuselage. As she watched in disbelief it collided with a second Raider, shearing it in half with its wing.

"WHOA," Tomo said, "that was _awesome!_ Are you okay?"

Torako looked out at her perforated wing and nodded. "I think so."

Tomo laughed and waggled her Viper from side to side. "Ha ha, now we match! We've both got holes in our-" She was cut short as her Viper was pierced from underneath by Cylon tracer fire. Torako watched in horrified shock as holes appeared in her sister's canopy and its inner surface was splashed with blood. She didn't see the Raider that blurred up between them with two other Vipers in pursuit; she only saw Tomo slump over to the side in her cockpit, her flight helmet concealing her face.

Torako opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Her jaw worked silently for a moment, before her voice finally found a purchase and came clawing its way out her throat in an anguished wail. "_TOMO!!_"

--

Ensign Wada grinned. "Sir, FTL is back online!"

Kurosawa nodded and pushed away from the plotting table as the second Basestar flicked and disappeared from DRADIS. "Okay, time to get out of here. Mizuhara! Spin up the FTL and plot a course for the Burnham Quadrant. We should have enough cover there to give us time to plot our next move." She turned to the Communications Officer. "Ohyama! Bring our birds home."

Ohyama nodded. "All birds come on home, repeat all birds come on home. Combat landings authorized."

--

Torako didn't remember hearing the call to land, or bringing her Viper into the port flight pod. She barely even remembered climbing out of the cockpit, wrenching her helmet off, and staggering down the gangway onto the hangar deck. She was leaning against the gangway's railing when she heard Shiisa's voice and felt hands shaking her, snapping her back to reality.

"What happened?" Shiisa was asking her with frightened eyes. "Where's Tomo?"

Torako turned her head and looked down at her. "She's . . . she's dead," she heard herself say. "Tomo's dead." She dropped to her knees then, as the world around her was blurred by tears. _We were back together,_ she thought. _Everything was supposed to be okay . . ._ She pitched forward onto the hangar deck and sobbed as Shiisa dropped down next to her.

The _Sea Slug_ jumped.

* * *

**-Author Notes-**

I'm not gonna lie, I am not happy that I just killed off Tomo (OH SHIT SPOILERS IF YOU'RE READING THIS PART FIRST!). I like Tomo. But as I thought it over I decided it worked better than it would if she were to survive, so I'm sorry Tomo, but you've gotta go.


	13. Picking up the Pieces

The _Sea Slug_ jumped seven times before Colonel Kurosawa let them catch their breath, each time crossing the red line. They were in uncharted space now; there had been no rhyme or reason to the destinations, with the only goal putting as much space between the ship and the Colonies as possible.

Kurosawa sighed and stepped up to the podium for one last funeral. She took a moment to look over the bodies lined down the launch tube before her, and at the crew to either side of her. She'd wanted her own Battlestar, but never like this. She didn't want to think of how many bodies it took to reach the full length of the tube like they did. Hundreds dead before her, and nearly half the air wing left behind in the Abraxas belt, floating with the mangled wreckage of their birds.

Finally she spoke. "I wish there was something I could say to make all of this better. We've lost our families. Our friends. And now our Commander. We've lost the war." She looked up from the microphone to the crew. _Her_ crew, now. "Commander Tanizaki was a brave woman. She never let herself consider the possibility of defeat, even once. I can't fault her that. For all her shortcomings, she had the determination needed to fight and win."

She took a deep breath. "But this is a fight we can't win. Not at this cost. This war is over." The crowd looked at each other uncertainly. "But we are not," Kurosawa said. "Our homes were destroyed, so we'll make a new one. The journey may be long, it may be hard, but it can be done. Our ancestors did it two thousand years ago, during the Great Exodus, when they left Kobol. _We_ can do it now." She squared her shoulders. "Look at yourselves, at the people around you. You will be the pioneers of a new world. We will find our new home out there in the stars, and we will build a new society. So say we all!"

"_SO SAY WE ALL!_"

--

Torako Takino stepped through the airlock and into what remained of _Something Delicate_'s cargo hold. Though the _Firefly_-class transport had miraculously survived the Cylon ambush with only minor damage, only the forward section had been taken along for the ride when the _Slug_ had jumped away after finishing off the last Basestar; everything aft of the ship's "neck" and the forwardmost third of the cargo hold had been brutally torn away as the ship was pulled through a hole in space that wasn't wide enough to accommodate it.

Torako stood and stared out at the vast emptiness of interstellar space for a moment before stepping onto what remained of the gangway and heading up to the forward hallway. As she headed up, followed by Asagi and Shimauu, she made a mental note to check if the locker that held their EVA suits had survived. She didn't particularly like these Colonial-issue types.

They moved in the silence of the vacuum, each headed for their own quarters to retrieve whatever affects they wanted to hold onto before the _Delicate_ was finally cut free to drift. Torako listened to the sound of her own breathing as she pushed the hatch to her quarters open with her foot and climbed down the access ladder. With the gravity drive left however many trillions of miles behind them, everything had taken off to drift lazily about the room. Torako opened the duffel bag she carried and grabbed her puzzle cube, then her camera. (Though she wasn't sure it would still work; she could always throw it out later.) Then she saw the one thing that had driven her to come back to the _Delicate_ in the first place, and crossed the room to gently pluck it from near the ceiling. The glass had cracked from its fall from her desk, but the picture of her and Tomo had otherwise survived the attack. She nodded and smiled, then placed it in her bag before turning to her closet. She didn't keep nearly as many extra sets of clothes onboard as Asagi or Shimauu, but if it was all she was going to have to wear for the foreseeable future she'd probably better save as much as she could.

--

Captain Mai Kagura lifted her shot glass above her head. "To Tomo." She brought the glass down and looked into it with hazy eyes. "The craziest frakkin' Viper jock I ever flown with." She threw back her head and downed the liquor.

Lieutenant Koyomi Mizuhara raised her own glass. "To Tomo!" she assented. "Nobody was as good at pissin' me off as she was." She gulped it down, grimaced, and shook her head.

Though the funeral had ended long ago and the pilots had finished their usual round of intoxicated mourning, Kagura had stayed behind in the rec room after everyone else had cleared out. She'd been just about to leave as well when Koyomi showed up, liquor bottle in hand. No words had been exchanged; none were needed. Kagura had grabbed two abandoned shot glasses, Koyomi had pulled out a chair from a nearby table, and they had begun pouring out shots.

Koyomi poured herself another shot. Her fine motor control had gone straight to hell, so more liquor ended up on the table than in the glass. She slammed the bottle down, but didn't pick up the glass. She wavered from side to side as she stared at it through heavy-lidded eyes. "Tomo . . ." she finally whispered. "I can't . . . believe she's gone . . ."

Kagura nodded. "She always seemed so invincible." She laughed. "I used to tell her she was so stupid she probably wouldn't know to die even if she ever did get pegged." She immediately regretted saying that, and looked at Koyomi for any sign of anger or offense. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to . . ."

Koyomi wasn't listening to her. She'd slumped forward onto the table and was sobbing into her crossed arms. All Kagura could do was place a comforting hand on her shoulder and fight back tears of her own.

--

"So this is where we'll be living now?" Miura Hayasaka looked around the duty locker and crossed her arms. "What a crappy home." Everyone assigned to this room had died in the attack, so Colonel Kurosawa had given it to the refugees.

Fuuka climbed up into an empty rack and swung her legs over the side. "Beats the _Delicate_ though, right?"

"Yeah," Koiwai agreed as he lifted Yotsuba down from another top rack. "These big Battlestars can go years without needing to restock for food or water."

"At least on the _Delicate_ we'd have had our own rooms," Miura said as she drew a curtain back and forth. "These curtains don't give you much privacy."

Ena climbed up into the rack above hers. "I'm sure they'd let us put up divisions or something."

"That piece of crap only had enough food stores for about a year," Asagi said as she pulled clothes out of her duffel bag and into a locker. "Even less after we took you all on. We're all better off here."

"I sure miss her, though," Shimauu said.

"I miss having leg room," Jumbo groused, as he stretched out in a rack. He fit, but only barely. "Couldn't they make these things any longer?"

"I guess they just didn't take freaks of nature like you into account when they designed them," Miura said snidely. Everyone else in the room except Yotsuba and Torako hung their head and sighed; once Jumbo and Miura got to bickering, there wasn't much that could put a stop to it.

Though her father tried to restrain her, Yotsuba climbed up the rungs to peer at the picture Torako was looking at. "Who's that?" she asked.

Torako glanced up at her and chewed on the pen between her teeth. "My sister," she said.

Yotsuba laughed. "You have a sister! I don't have a sister."

Torako sighed. "I _had_ a sister."

Koiwai grabbed Yotsuba moved her down to the floor. "Yotsuba, let's leave Tora alone for a while, okay?"

"Why?" Yotsuba asked.

Shimauu knelt down beside her. "Because she's sad and misses her sister very much."

Yotsuba grinned then. "Then I'll cheer her up!"

Koiwai glanced uncomfortably at Torako. She seemed to be ignoring them, or at least trying to. Without a word she reached up and drew the curtain across her rack, closing herself off from the rest of them.

--

Lieutenant Mizuhara paused in the open hatch and knocked on the frame. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

Colonel Kurosawa got up from her desk. "I didn't wake you, did I?"

Mizuhara looked like hell; she hadn't slept much last night (if at all), and Kurosawa was pretty sure she was hung over. "No, not really," Mizuhara said as she shook her head. "I can't be woken up if I can't get to sleep."

Kurosawa nodded. She'd spent much of the night mourning Yukari; she felt gutted and hollow inside; she could only imagine how Mizuhara must be feeling. "I'm sorry about Tomo," she said, and meant it. Despite being one of the most obnoxious people she'd ever met, Kurosawa had to admit she'd grown to like Takino.

Mizuhara nodded and looked at the floor. Finally she raised her bloodshot eyes. "So what did you want to speak to me about?"

Kurosawa nodded. "Ah, yes." She went back to her desk. "If I'm going to be taking command of this ship, I'm going to need a capable XO." She opened a drawer and took out a small box. "I'd like for that to be you."

Mizuhara blinked. "I . . ." She stared at the box in Kurosawa's hand and straightened and smiled. "Sir, it would be an honor."

Kurosawa opened the box. "Then congratulations, Captain."

Mizuhara took the collar pips. "Thank you, Colonel."

Kurosawa sighed. "I suppose I'd better get used to being called Commander from now on."

Mizuhara nodded. "Thank you Commander."

Kurosawa leaned back against her desk. "I have to say I'd have rather taken command through mutiny. At least that way Yukari would still be alive."

"What are we going to do with her?" Mizuhara asked.

"That I intend to find out soon enough," Kurosawa said.

--

The Marine guards snapped to attention as Kurosawa stepped into the brig. "As you were, gentlemen," she said as she crossed to the glass barrier separating her from the holding cell.

"Oh, I got a visitor," Osaka said happily from where she was standing. The side of her head was crusted with blood, and her hands were firmly shackled behind her.

Kurosawa looked at her with undisguised hatred. "What did they offer you?" she finally asked.

"Huh?"

"The Cylons," Kurosawa said. "What did they offer you to turn on your own kind?"

Osaka giggled. "I didn't turn on my own kind, silly."

"Explain."

She shrugged. "Simple. I'm a Cylon, so's I can't betray anyone if I kill humans."

"You're a Cylon," Kurosawa repeated.

Osaka nodded.

"Cylons are machines."

"We evolved," Osaka explained.

Kurosawa looked at her a moment before she turned to the guards. "Put this lunatic out the airlock," she said, and left the brig.

"Oh, I've always wanted to see my life flash before my eyes!" Osaka exclaimed gleefully.

When Kurosawa returned to her quarters she found her CAG standing outside the hatch. "Someone to see you sir," she said and gestured inside with her head. She stepped inside and saw Takino's sister, looking a display case of medals and awards. _Torako._ Yeah, that was her name.

"I'm sorry about your sister," she said.

Torako turned to her. "Thanks."

Kurosawa smiled a little. "She could be a real handful, but she was a good pilot." She nodded at her. "So are you, it seems. I hear you made ace out there. Five kills."

Torako nodded. "Yeah. I'm surprised I even survived though."

"So what did you want to see me about?"

Torako took a breath. "I want to join your crew. Enlist, I guess."

Kurosawa raised her eyebrows. "You want to enlist?"

She nodded. "I want to be a Viper pilot. You said yourself you've got more birds than pilots, and I . . ."

"You want to do it for Tomo," Kurosawa finished when Torako didn't.

She nodded.

"Well, we do need more pilots," Kurosawa said. "And I _was_ thinking of ways for you guys to pull your weight around here. I'd be happy to have you."

Torako smiled. "Thank you, sir."

When she left the Commander's quarters Kagura hurried up to her from where she'd been waiting outside. "So you're gonna be a Viper jock?"

Torako nodded down at her. "Yeah. Follow in Tomo's footsteps, I guess."

Kagura reached up and slapped a hand on her shoulder. "Well if you can make ace without even flying a Viper before, I'm sure you'll make a great pilot. Maybe even as good as me!" She laughed, then got serious for a moment. "Hey, Smokestack."

"Yeah?"

"I'm gonna need someone to fly my number two."

Torako smiled and nodded at her.

* * *

**-Author Notes-**

I would have had this chapter done sooner, but this week was a frakking bitchmonster work-wise, and I was left with basically zero energy for writing.

Only one chapter to go! Exciting! Spoilers THEY ALL DIE.

Okay probably not.


	14. Welcome Home

"_Sea Slug_ Shiisa three-two-niner, CAP is away."

"Roger that Shiisa," Ensign Ayase said over the wireless. "Have a safe flight, you two."

"We'll certainly try," Smokestack responded.

"Hey Smokestack," Kagura said and looked over at the Viper on her wing. "What do you say we get a change of scenery?" She didn't bother waiting for a response that probably wasn't coming in the first place before she dipped her own Viper and entered the upper atmosphere of the gas giant below them. If there was one thing she'd learned about Torako in the year they'd been flying together, it was that she was a lot quieter than her sister had been. Her flying style was a lot different as well; while Tomo was almost suicidally reckless, Torako flew with a combination of caution and level-headed calculation. While she couldn't always outfly her opponents during their combat excersises, she was often able to outthink them.

She led her wingman down through the atmosphere until they were flying between the white clouds of the planet's stratosphere. She looked around at the deep blue sky and towering cumulus and grinned over at her number two. "Quite a view, huh?"

Smokestack inverted her plane and looked below them. "Quite a view down there, too."

Kagura did the same and tilted her head up. Further down the clouds grew dark and foreboding, their innards flickering with almost constant lightning activity. "Hoo," she said. "I'd hate to fly in _that._"

"You wouldn't," Smokestack said. "It's well below the hard deck. Atmospheric pressure would destroy your plane before you ever reached it."

Kagura nodded and rolled back over. She'd heard stories from her parents about Viper pilots dying that way during the first Cylon War; the Cylon pilots would force them down into the atmosphere of a gas giant until the pressure became too great and their Vipers exploded. The level of hatred those Cylons had felt toward humanity and the sadistic ways in which they acted on it always gave her chills when she thought about it.

She decided to change the subject. "Been a while since I've seen a blue sky."

"Mm," came the mumbled affirmative. Throughout the _Sea Slug_'s year-long trek across the galaxy they'd flown over planets with green skies, with yellow skies, orange, red, and purple, but not many with blue.

Kagura wondered what planet this was, and then reminded herself it had never been given a name; in fact she and Smokestack were the first humans, probably the first living things, to fly among its clouds. They weren't even sure where they were in the galaxy. Those first seven random jumps had gotten them hopelessly lost, putting them at a position where none of the star patterns were even remotely recognizable. From there they had simply wandered, moving from star to star in search of habitable worlds. So far, they hadn't had much luck.

Still, taking in the view around her, Kagura felt pretty good about things.

--

In the _Sea Slug_'s Combat Information Center, Commander Minamo Kurosawa glanced up at the DRADIS screen before yawning and rubbing at the back of her neck. She must have slept wrong last night, because it was sore as hell. Across the plotting table her Executive Officer didn't look any more alert than she felt. No one on the ship expected anything to happen during their sweep of this system; not after a year of travelling unmolested across space. Though there had been the constant worry of Cylon attacks in the first weeks, they hadn't seen hide nor hair of them since leaving the Colonies.

There was a brief moment of apprehension when the DRADIS beeped and Lieutenant Mihama announced the contact, but it was just as quickly dispelled when its IFF transponder identified it as Stammer and Flaps.

"They're back early, aren't they?" Mizuhara asked to no one in particular.

"Commander?" Asagi Ayase turned in her chair. "You're going to want to hear this," she said and put Stammer up on the speakers.

" . . . rivers and lakes! It's got _forests!_ We found it!" She sounded excited.

Kurosawa grabbed up a wireless receiver. "Stammer, this is _Sea Slug_ Actual. Say again. What have you found?"

Stammer's ecstatic voice gushed over the wireless. "Home! We found our new home! Atmosphere's just right, water in the oceans, mountains, rivers, lakes, forests! We _found_ it!"

Kurosawa looked across the table at Mizuhara. She was trying not to grin. The same expression was on the faces of everyone around her. "Come on home, Stammer," she finally said. "I want a full report." She allowed herself to smile. "And good work."

"Thank you sir."

--

"Damn, look at these temperature readings," Mizuhara said as she read the data brought back from Raptor 1138's preliminary sweep of the planet.

Beside her Mihama nodded. "It looks pretty nice, subtropical almost up to the poles."

"Hot as hell at the equator, but no worse than anything we had back home," Kurosawa said. "Guess we can leave the cold weather gear in storage." She traced a mountain range with her finger. "Looks like plenty of places we can try our hand at mining, too." She turned and picked up another photograph, this one showing the planet from space. She had to admit that it did look very inviting, with what looked like a single supercontinent covering nearly half its surface. It seemed to be mostly prairie and savanna, with several rainforests large enough to swallow up entire continents from her native Virgon. She wondered if all that green really was indicative of chlorophyll; given the apparent lack of human habitation, that would mean it had arisen independently. She wondered what the odds of that happening were.

"Captain Mizuhara," she finally said, "I want you to get together with the CAG, organize a recon mission." She dug through the pictures until she found what she was looking for. "I'd especially like to find out more about this," she said as she pointed at what looked like an enormous valley wide enough to hold a small country and buried under clouds. "That is just weird."

Mizuhara nodded. "Yes sir."

She reached out a hand to Lieutenant Aida. "Good work, Lieutenants."

Aida shook her hand. "Thank you sir."

Inoue did the same. "Thank you."

After she dismissed everyone she took a long look at this planet they'd found. _Our new home, huh?_

--

Asagi was waiting for Torako outside the pilot's duty locker. As soon as she arrived, she grinned and threw her arms around her neck. "Didja hear the news?"

Torako nodded and tried to walk forward anyway. "Yeah, I heard."

Asagi frowned. "Why aren't you excited?"

She shrugged. "Guess I'm just waiting to see what the recon mission turns up."

"Oh, you're no fun." She leaned in and whispered into her ear. "I left my boots by the hatch."

Torako looked down and saw that sure enough, Asagi's boots were standing out in the hall. She felt her face grow hot as she began to stammer. "Um, are you sure . . ."

Asagi rolled her eyes. "Oh come _on_ Torako, it's been nearly a year now. Don't tell me you're still not ready."

Torako shook her head. "It's not that, it's just . . ."

"I could always pull rank," Asagi said with a smirk.

"_I_ outrank _you _now," Torako pointed out. She'd made Lieutenant last month, while Asagi was still an Ensign.

Asagi shook her head. "No, I'm still your Captain." She pulled Torako into the room and backed her up against the bulkhead. "Admit it, you like it when I order you around," she said with a lascivious grin.

Torako reached out, found the button to close the hatch, and pressed it. She engaged the lock just as Asagi leaned in and pressed her lips to hers.

--

Kagura yawned and ran a hand through her damp hair. After flying the CAP and then planning that recon mission with Koyomi, a hot shower and a long nap was just what she needed.

"Oh, come _on!_" she said as she rounded the corner and saw Ayase's boots sitting next to the locked hatch. Of all the traits Torako had to have in common with her sister . . . She shook her head in frustration and headed for a row of storage crates lined along the bulkhead. They looked just long enough for her to stretch out on.

--

After the return of the recon mission, Commander Kurosawa was finding it increasingly difficult to remain skeptical of this planet. The atmosphere was breathable, the soil was fertile, there was plenty of room to develop, and vast forests to provide lumber. There were plenty of sources of water, and all signs did point to a chlorophyll-based plant ecosystem, which would mean there had to be things they could eat. Not only that, but many of the aerial photos showed huge herds of indigenous fauna. Very, very _large_ indigenous fauna, which meant meat and hides.

Finally she stood up from her desk and left her quarters, heading for CIC. When she arrived she went straight to the plotting table. "Recall the CAP," she said. "Spool up the FTL and plot a jump to the planet."

"Yes sir," Ensign Ayase and Lieutenant Mihama both said before carrying out the orders.

It was night on the supercontinent when the _Sea Slug_ jumped into orbit. A new star appeared briefly in the dark sky, flashing into existence and disappearing from sight in almost the same instant. The Colonials had arrived.

A tone rang out through the ship as Commander Kurosawa picked up the wireless handset from the plotting table and switched on the PA. "This is the Commander," she said.

On the hangar deck, Shimauu and Boone looked up from degreasing engine parts. In the refugees' quarters Koiwai and Jumbo looked up from their magazines and Fuuka paused her game of Rock Paper Scissors with Yotsuba. In the pilot's duty locker Torako turned her eyes up from her nearly-finished puzzle cube.

Kurosawa continued. "One year ago, I promised you all that we would find ourselves a new home. As I'm sure you've all heard by now, that search is now at an end. Two days ago, one of our reconnaissance birds discovered a world perfect for human habitation." She paused. "We are now in orbit over that planet. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our new home."

The CIC erupted in cheers and applause as Kurosawa lowered the handset.

--

The first wave of Raptors streaked through the planet's atmosphere, scattering flocks of hairy, leathery-winged flyers the size of Vipers. They chose as their initial landing site a wide plain next to the edge of a wide lake in the southern hemisphere, and one by one the ungainly little ships landed and unloaded their passengers and cargo.

Commander Kurosawa squinted in the sunlight and felt the warm breeze on her skin as she stepped down into the knee-high grass. _Wind._ How long had it been since she last felt wind? She heard a joyful shout and turned to see the refugee children jumping down off the wing of another Raptor, followed at a more liesurely pace by the adults. As she watched Smokestack emerged from the Raptor's cockpit, pulling off her helmet and taking a deep breath.

She turned to the pilot of her own Raptor. "So what do you think?"

Captain Kagura shaded her eyes with a hand and looked out across the wide expanse of grass towards the line of trees in the distance and the mountains beyond. "I think it's a gift from the gods," she said.

Kurosawa nodded and looked towards a deep, brassy honk coming from the distant forest, then up at another group of Raptors descending through the clouds. "Home," she said to herself.

Kagura nodded. "Home," she said, then looked over at Torako as Ayase was grabbing her around the waist and grinning. "So what do we call this place?"

Kurosawa shrugged. "We'll have to figure that out."

* * *

**-Author Notes-**

So yeah, a happy ending. Not really in keeping with the relentlessly dark nature of the Battlestar universe, but I wanted a bit of a contrast with the hope-crushing (but awesome) mid-season finale of Galactica's fourth season. (Also, much as it sounds like a lame excuse, if this feels a bit rushed it's because I deliberately wanted a similar sort of "feel" to that mid-season finale, which itself was made a bit rushed because at the time Ron Moore didn't know if there would _be_ a second half of the season or not, thanks to the writers' strike.)

Until like a couple days ago I could not decide how I wanted to end this. At one point I was going to have them winding up in the Epsilon system and encountering the _Babylon 5_ station just for the sake of being weird, but I decided against that pretty quick. Finally (like, literally last night at work) I decided to have them stumble upon the planet I use as the setting for the bulk of my original work. Which is a cheat since it's supposed to be set in a universe where Earth doesn't exist and it's inhabited by humans, but this is a frakking _Azumanga/Yotsuba/Battlestar crossover,_ so I'm not going to worry about that too much. If at all.

Slightly related note (since it's another story I have up here): If you're following "The Other Takino," it may or may not interest you to know that in the interest of keeping my promise to step up my game I'm doing some rather extensive revisions to it, and before long I'm going to start deleting chapters from that and replacing them with newer, hopefully better versions. So while I hate to ask people to read the same old shit twice, you may want to since I'm going to be adding whole new scenes as well as just tweaking dialog and whatnot.


End file.
